Bill Gates’ net worth: How Microsoft’s co-founder spends his $160 billion, including properties, cars, and philanthropy

Gates long held the title as the world’s richest person, up until 2018 when Jeff Bezos surpassed him.

Now, Gates is only the world’s seventh-richest person and part of an exclusive club of centibillionaires — people worth over $100 billion.

Gates has invested in various stocks and assets and launched a $1 billion investment fund, Breakthrough Energy, alongside 20 other investors.

Despite his massive fortune, Gates previously told Ellen DeGeneres that when he became a billionaire at age 31 (which was history’s youngest billionaire at the time), he didn’t immediately start splurging. Gates’ initial spending spree was limited to just two “crazy” purchases: a Porsche and a private jet.

After founding Microsoft, Gates bought a Porsche 911 — his first big splurge, which he purchased in 1979, even before Microsoft’s hit products like Windows and Word ever reached the market. Gates later sold the Porsche, and it was auctioned for $80,000.

Gates’ car collection later included a Porsche 959.

Gates also owns a small fleet of private jets.

Gates owns at least 12 parcels of land spanning about 10.5 acres in Medina. He purchased the land for a combined $34 million between 1988 and 2009. In 2023, the Gates’ property taxes in Medina came to $1.3 million.

Gates’ estate includes a 60-foot pool — in its own separate, 3,900-square-foot building — with an underwater sound system. He reportedly paid to import sand from St. Lucia in the Caribbean to the shore surrounding his house.

There’s also a 2,100-square-foot library, home to a 16th-century Leonardo da Vinci manuscript that Gates bought at auction for $30 million in 1994. The home also features several famous paintings, including a Winslow Homer painting Gates purchased for $36 million in 1988.

The mansion has six kitchens, 24 bathrooms, a home theater, and various garages for his 23 cars.

Aside from his Washington home, Gates has a 20-acre estate in Wellington, Florida. The estate includes at least two mansions, one 6,668 square feet, and the other 5,716 square feet. He bought the properties over three years for about $35 million.

Gates’ daughter, Jennifer Gates Nassar, is an accomplished equestrian, and he bought the property to support her passion. It serves as the home base of her horseback riding facilities, and the area is a hot spot for many other wealthy equestrians as well.

He also purchased property at the Yellowstone Club in Montana. The main house is 6,993 square feet and has eight full baths, eight bedrooms, a sauna, and a home theater, according to property records.

Additionally, Gates is the biggest owner of private farmland in the country, with a whopping 275,000 acres. Gates has faced questions in the past about what he is doing with the land, and has downplayed concerns about the farmland, saying it’s managed by his investment team and makes up only a small fraction of total US farmlands.

In California, Gates owns the 228-acre Rancho Paseana, which he purchased for $18 million. When he bought it, the property had a racetrack, olive orchard, and five barns.

In 2020, he dropped $43 million on an oceanfront home in Del Mar with a 10-person Jacuzzi and 120 feet of Pacific coastline.

Gates also owns a 6-bedroom home on the grounds of Indian Wells’ famous Vintage Club.

There’s also another home on the grounds of a country club, Santaluz Club, in San Diego.

Some of the properties have likely been divvied up between Gates and French Gates following their divorce.

Using his personal investment firm, Cascade, Gates has made several investments, including partial ownership of the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 2013, Gates and several unnamed buyers paid $161 million for the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco.

Gates never took weekends or vacations during the early days of Microsoft, and has said startup founders shouldn’t, either. However, Gates made time for some splashy trips later in his career.

In 2014, he treated his family to a Mediterranean vacation on board the 439-foot superyacht Serene, which he chartered for $5 million a week. It included a helicopter.

He’s also traveled to Australia, Croatia, Belize, and the Amazon in Brazil.

He previously said that he likes to play tennis and go skiing. He’s also been spotted at tennis matches.

But Gates’ downtime isn’t always so adventurous. Gates loves books, and is an “avid bridge player,” as he told Reddit in a 2013 AMA.

Gates has sometimes said he has no use for money, and often speaks of his philanthropic giving and healthcare investments.

A grant from Gates and his then-wife Melinda led to the creation in 2003 of Amyris, a synthetic biology company that originally produced precursors to malaria drugs and hydrocarbon-based biofuel but also uses the technology for things like fragrances, skincare, and sweeteners. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023.

In November 2017, Gates invested $50 million into Alzheimer’s research. In 2018, he invested another $30 million with a group of investors in the Diagnostics Accelerator, a “venture philanthropy” fund to diagnose Alzheimer’s earlier.

Gates and his former wife also pledged about $2 billion to defeat malaria, donated over $50 million to fight Ebola, and pledged $38 million to a Japanese pharmaceutical company working to create a low-cost polio vaccine.

During the pandemic, their foundation announced a 5-year, $1.6 billion commitment to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to deliver vaccines in the world’s poorest countries.

The Gates Foundation also funds education through its $1.6 billion initiative known as the Gates Millennium Scholars Program.

The foundation said it made $77.6 billion in grant payments from its inception through Q4 2023. Gates’ total giving to the foundation during that time period totaled $59.5 billion.

Its 2024 budget is $8.6 billion, and the foundation is targeting a $9 billion yearly budget by 2026.

Gates is frequently named among the most generous philanthropists in the United States.

He has vowed to give away most of his fortune through the Giving Pledge, which he helped launch in 2010.

In July 2022, he reiterated that he plans to give virtually all his wealth to his and French Gates’ foundation, saying that he’ll eventually fall off the list of the world’s richest figures.