Gates Sold $1.9B of Berkshire and Microsoft in Q4 as the Foundation's 20-Year Self-Destruct Accelerates: Inside the $35.4B Blue-Chip Portfolio

In Q4 2025, the Gates Foundation Trust sold $1.9 billion worth of its two largest legacy positions — Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) and Microsoft (MSFT) — trimming 2.36 million Berkshire shares and 1.5 million Microsoft shares. These were the only two trades the foundation made all quarter, leaving its remaining 21 positions completely untouched. The moves are part of Bill Gates's publicly stated plan to reduce his net worth by 99% over the next 20 years as the foundation enters its sunsetting phase — a systematic, quarterly liquidation of a $35.4 billion blue-chip portfolio.

TL;DR — Gates Foundation Q4 2025

• Portfolio value: $35.36 billion across 23 holdings — pure blue-chip, zero speculative positions.
• Only 2 trades: Sold 2.36M BRK.B shares (-$1.19B value, -10.84%) and 1.5M MSFT shares (-$725M, -16.32%).
• Everything else held: 21 of 23 positions saw zero share-count changes — turnover rate just 5.3%.
• Top 5 = 80.87% of portfolio: BRK.B (27.59%), WM (17.98%), CNI (14.49%), MSFT (10.52%), CAT (10.29%).
• No new positions, no full exits: 0 new buys, 0 additions, 2 decreases. Purely a distribution portfolio.
• Sunsetting timeline: Gates pledged in May 2025 to give away 99% of his wealth over 20 years. These quarterly sells are the mechanism.
• Buffett connection fading: BRK.B was once 50%+ of the portfolio. Now 27.6% and shrinking by ~10% per quarter.
• Microsoft stake declining rapidly: Gates held 26M+ MSFT shares a year ago — now down to 7.7M. A 70% reduction in 12 months.

Filing Snapshot

Metric	Q4 2025
Filer	Gates Foundation Trust (CIK: 0001166559)
Report Date	December 31, 2025
Total Value	$35.36 billion
Holdings Count	23
New Positions	0
Closed Positions	0
Increased	0
Decreased	2 (BRK.B, MSFT)
Unchanged	21
Turnover Rate	5.3%

The Two Sells: Berkshire and Microsoft

Berkshire Hathaway: Trimming the Buffett Anchor

The foundation sold 2,358,460 shares of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), a 10.84% reduction that removed approximately $1.19 billion from the position. At 19.4 million remaining shares worth $9.75 billion, BRK.B is still the single largest holding at 27.59% — but the trajectory is unmistakable. In Q3 2025, Gates sold the same amount: 2.36 million shares. In Q2, he actually added 6.95 million shares before reversing course.

This pattern — occasional adds followed by steady sells — reflects a portfolio manager who is distributing, not investing. The Berkshire position has been the foundation's anchor since Warren Buffett pledged the bulk of his fortune to the Gates Foundation starting in 2006, one of the largest philanthropic commitments in history. Gates served on Berkshire's board from 2004 to 2020, and the two have been close friends for over 30 years.

With Buffett stepping down as CEO at the end of 2025 and Greg Abel now running the company, the foundation's gradual Berkshire reduction may also signal a pragmatic acknowledgment that the Buffett era — which defined this portfolio's DNA — is closing.

Microsoft: The Founder's Farewell, Accelerated

Gates sold 1,500,000 shares of Microsoft (MSFT), a 16.32% reduction worth roughly $725 million. The remaining 7.69 million shares are worth $3.72 billion — still the fourth-largest position at 10.52%, but a shadow of what it was. A year ago, Gates held over 26 million MSFT shares. He has now sold approximately 70% of that stake in four quarters.

In Q3 alone, he liquidated 17 million shares in a single enormous block. The Q4 trim of 1.5 million is modest by comparison but continues the unmistakable pattern: Microsoft is no longer a core conviction bet. It is a position being wound down on a schedule.

For context, Gates co-founded Microsoft in 1975 and has been selling shares systematically for over a decade. The current pace, however, is the fastest sustained sell-down in the foundation's history.

Portfolio Composition: A Study in Blue-Chip Orthodoxy

What makes the Gates Foundation portfolio remarkable is not what it holds — but what it doesn't. There are no mega-cap tech growth names beyond Microsoft. No AI plays. No crypto. No SPACs. No private equity wrappers. This is a portfolio built for preservation and income, not alpha generation.

The top 5 holdings — BRK.B, Waste Management (WM), Canadian National Railway (CNI), MSFT, and Caterpillar (CAT) — account for 80.87% of the portfolio. Each represents a different essential-infrastructure thesis:

• Waste Management ($6.36B, 17.98%): Recession-proof, inflation-hedged cash flows. Waste collection is a natural monopoly in most markets.
• Canadian National Railway ($5.12B, 14.49%): One half of the North American freight rail duopoly with CP. 51.8 million shares makes the foundation one of CNI's largest institutional holders.
• Caterpillar ($3.64B, 10.29%): Infrastructure and construction bellwether, up 32% from the trust's cost basis. Aligns with both GDP growth exposure and Gates's interest in real-economy assets.
• Deere & Co (DE) ($1.66B, 4.68%): Agricultural equipment. Gates is the largest private farmland owner in the United States — this is a thematic alignment, not a coincidence.
• Ecolab (ECL) ($1.37B, 3.87%): Water treatment and hygiene technology. Directly tied to the Gates Foundation's global health mission.

The remaining 13 positions — from Waste Connections (WCN) at $357.6M down to Veralto (VLTO) at $12.4M — are a mix of consumer staples (WMT, MCD, KHC), beverage companies (KOF, BUD), and smaller industrial positions. None exceeds 1.1% of the portfolio.

The Buffett-Gates Connection

No analysis of this portfolio is complete without understanding the Buffett-Gates relationship. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates met in 1991, became close friends, and played bridge together for decades. In 2006, Buffett announced he would give the bulk of his fortune to the Gates Foundation — a pledge that has resulted in tens of billions of dollars in Berkshire shares being donated over the years.

This is why Berkshire has historically been the dominant position. It wasn't a market bet — it was a gift. The foundation's job is to convert those donated shares into cash for global health, education, and poverty programs. Every quarter's BRK.B sell is the system working as designed.

With Buffett's retirement from Berkshire's CEO role at the end of 2025, the foundation's Berkshire position takes on a different character. Under Greg Abel, Berkshire's $382 billion cash pile and conglomerate structure remain, but the "Buffett premium" — the market's willingness to pay extra for Buffett's personal judgment — may gradually erode. The foundation's steady selling suggests it is not waiting to find out.

The Sunsetting Timeline

In May 2025, Bill Gates publicly announced his intention to reduce his net worth by 99% over the next 20 years. The Gates Foundation itself has committed to spending down its endowment — a "sunsetting" model that contrasts sharply with perpetual foundations like Ford or Rockefeller.

What does this look like in practice? At the current pace:

• Quarterly sell rate: ~$1.9B per quarter in Q4, following ~$3B+ in Q3. The rate fluctuates but the direction is one-way.
• Microsoft trajectory: At the current burn rate, the MSFT position could be fully liquidated within 2-3 years.
• Berkshire trajectory: At ~2.4M shares per quarter, the 19.4M remaining shares would take roughly 8 quarters (2 years) to fully exit, though the pace may accelerate.
• Total portfolio runway: $35.4B at $2-3B/quarter in sells suggests a 3-5 year aggressive distribution window, well within the 20-year sunset horizon.

This means the Gates Foundation Trust's 13F is not an investment portfolio in any traditional sense. It is a liquidation schedule disguised as a 13F filing.

What Analysts Might Misread

Several common interpretive errors arise when analyzing this filing:

1. "Gates is bearish on Berkshire." No. He is distributing a gift. The sells are size-based, not conviction-based. He sold the same 2.36M shares in both Q3 and Q4 — a mechanical pattern, not a market call.
2. "Gates is abandoning Microsoft." He has been selling Microsoft for over a decade. The Q3 2025 block sale of 17M shares was the sharpest move, but the direction has been consistent since the 2010s. This is diversification and philanthropy, not a loss of faith in the company he built.
3. "The static positions mean Gates is bullish on WM, CNI, and CAT." Maybe — but more likely, the foundation is simply not trading these names yet. The liquidation priorities are BRK and MSFT first. The mid-tier names will eventually be trimmed too.
4. "Low turnover means conviction." In a normal fund, 5.3% turnover signals deep conviction. In a sunsetting foundation, it signals sequencing — they are selling the largest positions first and will work their way down.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Gates keep selling Berkshire if it's performing well?

The sells are not performance-driven. Berkshire shares were donated to the foundation by Warren Buffett, and the foundation's mandate is to convert those shares into cash for charitable programs. With Gates's 20-year sunsetting commitment, the pace of conversion has accelerated. Stock performance is secondary to the distribution schedule.

Is Microsoft still a meaningful position for the foundation?

At $3.72 billion and 10.52% of the portfolio, Microsoft remains the fourth-largest holding. However, the stake has shrunk 70% in the past year — from 26M+ shares to 7.7M. At this rate, the position could be fully liquidated within 2-3 years. It is a meaningful position today but a disappearing one.

What would make this portfolio change strategy?

Very little. The foundation is in distribution mode, not investment mode. A severe market crash might slow the pace of sells (to avoid realizing losses at depressed prices), and a major new donation could temporarily add positions. But the overall trajectory — steady liquidation over 20 years — is set by Gates's public commitment and the foundation's charter.

Why are there no tech or AI stocks besides Microsoft?

The portfolio reflects a deliberate infrastructure-and-essentials philosophy. Gates has separate personal investments (including climate tech through Breakthrough Energy Ventures), but the foundation trust prioritizes capital preservation and income. Blue-chip industrials, waste management, rail, and consumer staples generate the steady cash flows needed to fund ongoing charitable operations during the wind-down.

How does this compare to other large foundations?

Most major foundations — Ford, Rockefeller, Howard Hughes Medical Institute — are structured as perpetual endowments, designed to exist forever. The Gates Foundation's sunsetting model is unusual: it intends to spend all its resources within 20 years of Bill and Melinda Gates's deaths (or sooner, given Gates's accelerated timeline). This means the investment approach is fundamentally different — oriented toward orderly liquidation rather than long-term compounding.