Billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates Officially Divorced After 27 Years of Marriage

Bill and Melinda Gates announced in a May joint statement that they had made the decision to end their 27-year union "after a great deal of thought and a lot of work" on the relationship.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, 65, and "Moment of Lift" author Melinda Gates, 56, have finalized their divorce, and agreed neither party will receive spousal support, according to court documents observed by Us Weekly on Monday. 

The Gates' 27-year marriage officially comes to an end nearly three months after they both took to social media to announce their separation. 

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— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 3, 2021

Per the filing, the court found their "marriage is irretrievably broken" and all property will be divided pursuant to a separate "Separation Contract." 

Though the couple has three children, none of them are minors, so neither child support nor custody factored into the divorce. 

It is possible that Melinda Gates may receive half of Bill Gates' fortune - estimated somewhere between 124 billion to 131 billion - because the couple did not have a prenuptial agreement. 

As for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the two initially claimed they would "continue to work together."

However, the Gates Foundation announced last month that, in the event the two cannot work together after two years apart, Melinda Gates "will resign her position as co-chair and trustee" and "receive personal resources from Gates for her philanthropic work." 

"These resources would be completely separate from the foundation’s endowment, which would not be affected," the Gates Foundation detailed. 

After the May announcement of Bill and Melinda Gates' uncoupling, several reports emerged, providing a variety of allegations as to why the couple could not "grow together," as their joint statement claimed. 

It was reported in the Wall Street Journal in May that Bill Gates resigned from the Microsoft Corp. board after a law firm was hired in 2019 to conduct an investigation into a yearslong affair between the Microsoft co-founder and an engineer, who claimed she had a sexual relationship with Gates while working at the company. 

"Microsoft received a concern in the latter half of 2019 that Bill Gates sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in the year 2000," the spokesperson said at the time. "A committee of the Board reviewed the concern, aided by an outside law firm to conduct a thorough investigation. Throughout the investigation, Microsoft provided extensive support to the employee who raised the concern." 

However, a Microsoft spokesperson denied that this was the reason for Bill Gates' "transition off the board." 

"There was an affair almost 20 years ago which ended amicably," the spokesperson asserted, arguing that Bill Gates' "decision to transition off the board was in no way related to this matter. In fact, he had expressed an interest in spending more time on his philanthropy starting several years earlier." 

Since their separation, Melinda Gates has not halted her own philanthropy efforts, and recently teamed up with MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and billionaire Lynn Schusterman to donate $40 million to the four project winners of the "Equality Can’t Wait Challenge" - a funding competition that seeks to expand "women's power and influence" in the US."