From Mark And Bill To Ashton And Mila: Why Billionaires And Celebrities Are Saying No To Generational Wealth

Legendary investor Warren Buffett has famously indicated that he will leave some of his wealth to his children but has made it clear that he plans to give 99% of it to charitable causes. 

"After much observation of super-wealthy families, here's my recommendation: Leave the children enough so that they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing," he wrote in a 2021 letter to shareholders. Each of Buffett's three children has $2 billion in foundation funding that was set up years ago to ensure they will not grow old in poverty.

Buffett is not alone in this thinking — many billionaires and high-net-worth celebrities are following suit.

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Billionaires And The Giving Pledge

One of Buffett's close friends, Microsoft Corp. Co-Founder Bill Gates, is also in the anti-generational wealth camp. He and his now ex-wife Melinda spend billions of dollars through their foundation to address global poverty and health concerns. 

In a line of thought similar to Buffett, Gates has said, "Our kids will receive a great education and some money so they are never going to be poorly off but they'll go out and have their own career. It's not a favor to kids to have them have huge sums of wealth. It distorts anything they might do creating their own path."

Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, were early signees to The Giving Pledge, an initiative founded in 2010 by Gates and Buffett that encourages the very rich to commit to dedicating the majority of their wealth to charitable causes.  Zuckerberg and Chan plan to donate 99% of their wealth to charitable causes. While their children might not receive all of the remaining 1%, it is still a vast sum of money — around $640 million as of Oct. 6.

Other notable names on The Giving Pledge list include Oracle Corp. Co-Founder Larry Ellison, novelist MacKenzie Scott, who has already donated billions of dollars to numerous charities, Facebook Co-Founder Dustin Moskovitz, billionaire Charles Bronfman and Brad Keywell, co-founder of Groupon and founder and chairman of Uptake Technologies, an industrial artificial intelligence (AI) company. 

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Celebrities Preventing ‘Nepo Babies'

Power couple Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, who are worth an estimated $265 million to $350 million, do not plan to create trusts or leave large sums of money to their kids. They are part of a pushback against "nepo babies," short for nepotism, a term used to describe people who use their parents' connections and fame to build their own perhaps undeserved careers.

Music icon Sting, worth an estimated $550 million, also does not want to leave "Fields of Gold" to his children. He has said, "I told them there won't be much money left because we are spending it. We have a lot of commitments. What comes in we spend, and there isn't much left. I certainly don't want to leave them trust funds that are albatrosses 'round their necks. They have to work. All my kids know that and they rarely ask me for anything, which I really respect and appreciate."

Sting expresses his desire for his kids to find their own footing and success without hundreds of millions of dollars. 

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