The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested in Apple, Amazon, and Google last quarter (2024)

• The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust invested in Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Alibaba, and Twitter last quarter.
• The investment arm of the world's largest private foundation revealed the new tech bets, valued north of $450 million in total, in a recent financial filing.
• The trust also trimmed its biggest holding, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, likely to finance the foundation's efforts to combat coronavirus.
• The coronavirus sell-off fueled a 19% drop in the value of its portfolio to about $17.4 billion.
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust placed big bets on technology titans in the first quarter, according to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The trust, which manages the assets of the world's largest private foundation, revealed new positions in Apple, Amazon, Google-parent Alphabet, Alibaba, and Twitter. Its stakes in the first four were valued between $100 million and $130 million each on March 31, while its Twitter holdings were worth about $7 million.

The trust also revealed a $301 million stake in Schrodinger following the drug-discovery software group's public debut in February. The only other change to its portfolio was the sale of five million Berkshire Hathaway shares, representing 10% of its stake in Warren Buffett's conglomerate.

The cut to its biggest holding is no surprise: Buffett is a close friend of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, and gifts shares to their foundation each year to help finance its philanthropy.

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The trust's flurry of purchases did little to soften the blow from the coronavirus sell-off. Its portfolio shrunk in value by 19% to about $17.4 billion, as FedEx, UPS, Liberty Global, Walmart, and other holdings suffered share-price declines.

Gates has emerged as a leading commentator on the COVID-19 outbreak due to his deep experience in fighting diseases and vaccinating populations, and his warning of a pandemic back in 2015.

The philanthropist recently said his foundation is giving "total attention" to the pandemic, and expects to spend billions constructing vaccine factories.

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