Buffett says Gates' Epstein ties are 'distasteful' but didn't drive Buffett's charitable decisions

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Billionaire Warren Buffett said Wednesday that his decision to cut the Gates Foundation out of his charitable giving is more about believing his three kids are ready to handle giving away his entire fortune than it is about Bill Gates ' ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Buffett told CNBC that Gates' association with Epstein was “distasteful," but the 95-year-old investor suggested that Gates' actions weren't much different from mistakes he himself had made over the years in hiring the wrong person or in choosing friends.

“No one bats a thousand in the business of choosing people," Buffett said on CNBC.

Buffett said he “read a great deal since Jan. 1 in terms of what happened with Bill and Epstein. And I have read his remarks to Congress given under oath, and I read the cross-examination.” He noted that Gates eventually ended his relationship with Epstein.

Buffett said Gates wasn't surprised by the decision Buffett announced Tuesday to eventually donate all the rest of his $140 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to foundations associated with his family and his three children, Howard, Susie and Peter. Gates flew to Omaha a few weeks ago and spent several hours talking with Buffett. The two hadn't spoken much since before additional details about Gates and Epstein started to come out when the federal government began releasing files from the Epstein investigation.

Gates has said that he only met with Epstein because he thought it might help him raise money for charitable causes, and he didn't know about Epstein's ongoing crimes.

Epstein, who was accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls, was found dead at the Manhattan federal lockup in August 2019. His death was later ruled a suicide by New York City’s medical examiner.

Buffett said in 2024 that he planned to cut off donations to the Gates Foundation after he died and let his three children decide how to distribute the rest of his fortune.

In other news from the CNBC interview, Buffett revealed that he recently broke his leg and underwent surgery for it, but he said he is recovering well.

The Gates Foundation didn't immediately respond after Buffett's interview on Wednesday, but a day earlier the foundation thanked Buffett for donating more than $47 billion since 2006. The Gates Foundation plans to close in 2045 after distributing the rest of Gates' fortune.

Buffett said he wants his own money to be distributed even quicker than he has previously indicated: by the end of 2034. To do that, he will have to drastically increase the amount he donates every year, to more than $17 billion annually.

Right now he is giving roughly $6 billion to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and the foundations his children run: the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the Novo Foundation. The majority of that is going to the foundation named in honor of his late wife, which may quickly become one of the world's largest such organizations. Buffett also traditionally gives additional gifts to his family foundations around Thanksgiving each year.

He has said that after his death, a new foundation will be created to distribute the rest of his shares and that his children will have to agree unanimously on where to donate them. He wants his children to be able to make those decisions before they die and his oldest daughter will be nearly 81 in eight years.

The accelerated pace of Buffett's plan to give away his fortune over the next eight years rather than doing it over the 10 years following his death will mean that his successor at Berkshire Hathaway, Greg Abel, won't be able to count on the support of Buffett's family as the company's biggest shareholder for as long as he thought.

Nevertheless, Buffett said he believes it's clear that Abel is the right man to lead the conglomerate he built, and “that becomes more evident by the day.”

However, Buffett did note that Berkshire's big investment in Google's parent company, which has grown in value considerably over the past year, is one he initiated and not an investment Abel picked, though Abel did agree on it. Just last month, Berkshire agreed to invest another $10 billion in Alphabet after previously tripling its stake in the company.

FILE - Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, speaks during a game of bridge following the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting May 5, 2019, in Omaha, Neb. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)

FILE - Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, leaves after a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee investigating convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Capitol Hill, June 10, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

FILE - Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates, left, and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. billionaire Warren Buffett laugh while answering questions Aug 5, 2006, before the Nebraska Regional Bridge tournament in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (AP Photo/Dave Weaver, File)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Trump administration followed through on its pledge to rework and then reinstall panels about slavery at the site of President George Washington's home in Philadelphia.

Critics have warned that the new panels replacing the ones exhibited since 2010 whitewash the history of slavery. They were installed Wednesday morning in the same area where the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776.

“Overnight, under the cover of darkness, the federal government removed panels at the President’s House that told a thorough history of Philadelphia,” Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said Wednesday. “It was allowed to do this by the decision of the federal court, but that it did so at night shows it understands this action is shameful, that it violates community trust.”

The original panels were put in place in 2010 and told the story of how nine slaves lived in the home along with George and Martha Washington in the 1790s, when Philadelphia was briefly the nation’s capital.

Those panels were updated after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in 2025 that called for federally owned or controlled historic sites to not display information to “disparage Americans past or living” and to focus on the “greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.”

A lower court forced the federal government in February to remove the new panels after they already had been installed earlier this year. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit of Appeals reversed that and ruled July 3 that the work could continue.

A government website with images of the new panels showed they would still have information on enslaved people who lived in the home. It would also include details on the abolitionist movement, how the Constitution treated slavery, the end of slavery in Pennsylvania and how Washington and his successor, John Adams, viewed and treated slavery, as well as information about the 20th century Civil Rights movement.

However, the replacement panels do not include some of detail in the earlier ones, such as a map of slave trade routes and a timeline on slavery. They also avoid critical headlines such as “The Dirty Business of Slavery.”

The city of Philadelphia had sued the federal government over the removal of information previously included in the panels. It argued that the federal government must consult with the city before making changes to the President’s House Site. Justice Department lawyers argued the administration alone can decide what stories are told at National Park Service properties.

Parker said the city intends to seek a rehearing “on serious legal issues” presented in the appeals court decision.

Michael Coard, an attorney and founder of Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC), said the Philadelphia-based history preservation group continues to work on legal strategies opposing the Trump administration’s changing of the panels.

ATAC joined the city’s lawsuit.

Trump is attempting to rewrite history, Coard told reporters Wednesday near the site.

“What if there’s a president next time who doesn’t like the Liberty Bell because the Liberty Bell was used by abolitionists to support the end of slavery?” he said. “What if there’s a president who doesn’t like the Statue of Liberty because too many immigrants come in? Do we remove the Statue of Liberty?”

The Interior Department told The Associated Press Wednesday in a statement that the new “panels are full of historical context and highlight the momentous events that took place in the President’s House and the other sites at Independence National Historical Park.”

“They acknowledge the evils of slavery, including its injustices and hypocrisies, and, by telling the stories of the nine slaves that Washington kept in the President’s House, remind us of their essential humanity,” the statement said.

Williams reported from Detroit.

Visitors view the reinstalled educational panels about slavery at the site of President George Washington's home in Philadelphia, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Tassanee Vejpongsa)

Visitors view the reinstalled educational panels about slavery at the site of President George Washington's home in Philadelphia, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Tassanee Vejpongsa)

Visitors view the reinstalled educational panels about slavery at the site of President George Washington's home in Philadelphia, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Tassanee Vejpongsa)

Visitors view the reinstalled educational panels about slavery at the site of President George Washington's home in Philadelphia, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Tassanee Vejpongsa)

Visitors view the reinstalled educational panels about slavery at the site of President George Washington's home in Philadelphia, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Tassanee Vejpongsa)