The Giving Pledge at 15

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 Introduction

 “There’s never been a greater need for philanthropy — and there has never been a greater opportunity to have an impact in our own lifetimes,” said Bill Gates while introducing 2025’s new class of Giving Pledgers.

 The Giving Pledge is a philanthropic initiative co-founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in 2010 to boost giving by America’s billionaires. Members of the Giving Pledge promise to give at least half of their wealth to charity, either while living or upon their death.

 The effort was inspired in part by Chuck Feeney, the reluctant billionaire who advocated “giving while living” and rigorously gave away over $8 billion in his lifetime, trading his billionaire status for a modest and simpler life. “[Feeney] told me we should encourage people not to give just 50 percent,” Gates recounted , “but as much as possible during their lifetime.”

 The Giving Pledge is the largest and most visible public commitment that billionaires make as a group to distribute their vast fortunes. Now that the Giving Pledge is old enough for a driver’s permit, there’s a body of evidence suggesting how the Pledge might carry on. Will it be remembered as a catalyst or an empty promise?

 There are bold and direct Giving Pledgers, there are Pledgers who need to pick up the pace, and there are Pledgers who cravenly intertwine personal benefit with their philanthropic obligations. There are Democrats and Republicans, the on-paper politics-averse and the hyper-political. There are notables like MacKenzie Scott, Elon Musk, and Robert F. Smith alongside people you’ve likely never heard of who shape society with quieter voices.

 But across nearly every example, there’s proof that the Pledge is unfulfilled, unfulfillable, and not our ticket to a fairer, better future .

 Three quarters of the original U.S. Giving Pledgers who are still alive remain billionaires today, and they have collectively gotten far wealthier since they signed, while just 8 of 22 deceased Pledgers fulfilled their pledges. What’s more, most of these contributions have gone to private foundations or donor-advised funds (DAFs), which can warehouse wealth for years without paying it out to working charities.

 On the cusp of the Great Wealth Transfer to the next generation and a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans under the GOP’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” our nation is about to see even more accretions of philanthropic power in dyna

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