SEATTLE — Bill and Melinda Gates announced Monday that they are divorcing.<\/p>\n
The Microsoft co-founder and his wife, who launched the world\u2019s largest charitable foundation, said they would continue to work together at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.<\/p>\n
In identical tweets, they said they had made the decision to end their marriage of 27 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives,\u201d they said in a statement. \u201cWe ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her 2019 memoir, \u201cThe Moment of Lift,\u201d Melinda Gates wrote about her childhood, life and private struggles as the wife of a public icon and stay-at-home mom with three kids. She won Gates\u2019 heart after meeting at a work dinner, sharing a mutual love of puzzles and beating him at a math game.<\/p>\n
The couple’s sprawling Seattle-based foundation is easily the most influential private foundation in the world, with an endowment worth nearly $50 billion. It has focused on global health and development and U.S. education issues since incorporating in 2000.<\/p>\n
The couple were married in 1994 in Hawaii. They met after she began working at Microsoft as a product manager in 1987.<\/p>\n
Last year, Bill Gates, formerly the world’s richest person, said he was stepping down from Microsoft’s board to focus on philanthropy.<\/p>\n
Gates was Microsoft\u2019s CEO until 2000 and since then has gradually scaled back his involvement in the company he started with Paul Allen in 1975. He transitioned out of a day-to-day role in Microsoft in 2008 and served as chairman of the board until 2014.<\/p>\n
The Gateses will be the second high-profile Seattle-area billionaire couple to end their marriage in recent years.<\/p>\n
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos finalized their divorce in 2019. MacKenzie Scott has since remarried and now focuses on her own philanthropy. She received a 4% stake in Amazon, worth more than $36 billion.<\/p>\n