Inside the life and career of Melinda Gates, philanthropist and one of the world's richest and most powerful women
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- Melinda French Gates is one of the world's richest women, even after her divorce from Bill Gates.
- Bill and Melinda Gates first met at Microsoft, and were married for 27 years.
- Here's what to know about Melinda Gates' life, career, and philanthropic pursuits.
Melinda French Gates, born Melinda Ann French, is 60 years old and one of the richest women — indeed, one of the richest people — alive today.
Though she already enjoyed a successful career before wedding Microsoft founder Bill Gates, her marriage rocketed Melinda Gates through the stratosphere in terms of wealth. But her main legacy is the money she has given away in the form of charitable works through the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
Melinda Gates' early life and career
Gates seemed destined for achievement from a young age, starting with an impressive academic career.
Melinda Gates was born in 1964 in Dallas, Texas, and raised alongside three siblings. She developed an early interest in computers and programming and, after graduating from high school at the top of her class, she went on to earn dual degrees in computer science and economics from Duke University.
She then earned an MBA from Duke as well. She completed both undergraduate degrees and her master's in just five years.
The first company for which Melinda Gates ever worked would also be the last corporation of which she was an employee: Microsoft. Gates joined to software juggernaut in 1987 after turning down an offer from the then larger IBM, per the National Women's History Museum.
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Gates worked in the growing firm's marketing department and soon was helping to develop and launch software products including Publisher; Cinemania; the vaunted word processing platform still used today, Microsoft Word; and the wildly successful travel site Expedia.
Melinda Ann French would surely have caught the eye of Microsoft CEO Bill Gates based on her success at Microsoft alone, but their meeting, four months after she joined his company, led to more than a working relationship; it led to a budding romance.
Bill and Melinda Gates' early years, marriage, and family
After seven years of dating, Bill and Melinda Gates were married in Hawaii on New Year's Day in the year 1994. It was a private — indeed secretive — ceremony that allegedly cost $1 million, hardly a problem for Bill Gates, who had been a billionaire since 1987.
Melinda Gates left Microsoft in 1996, shortly after the birth of her and Bill Gates' first child, a daughter named Jennifer. The couple had a second child, Rory, in 1999, and a third, Phoebe, who was born in 2002.
It was a few years after her departure from Microsoft that Melinda Gates stepped into a leadership role at a charitable organization that would define much of the next two decades of her life and would change the lives of thousands of people around the world.
Melinda Gates' work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
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Founded in 1994 as the William H. Gates Foundation and rebranded as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in the year 2000, after merging with the Gates Library Foundation which Melinda had set up in 1997.
To date the BMGF has given away more than $77 billion in charitable grants.
Melinda Gates served as the co-chair of the foundation for well over two decades, and during her time there the organization, at times billed as the largest private charitable organization on the planet, worked on everything from disease eradication to empowering women to developing clean water and agriculture projects and more.
Melinda French Gates stepped down from her role at the BMGF in the late spring of the year 2024, a bit less than three years after she divorced Bill Gates.
Why and when did Melinda and Bill Gates get divorced?
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Melinda Gates and Bill Gates were officially divorced in 2021, ending a 27-year union. There had long been rumors of infidelity on Bill Gates' part, and in interviews, Melinda Gates cited a lack of trust and said she realized the relationship wasn't "healthy."
Melinda Gates also spoke of grieving the relationship, but ultimately making the painful decision that she could not remain married to Bill Gates.
Melinda Gates was also reported to have serious misgivings about Bill Gates' relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and alleged sex trafficker who died by suicide in a New York City jail cell in 2019.
How much money did Melinda Gates get in the divorce?
Bill and Melinda Gates did not have a prenuptial agreement in place, opting for a separation agreement, instead. But Melinda Gates would nonetheless leave the union as a wealthy woman. She was granted more than $6.3 billion worth of Microsoft stocks, and has a total estimated net worth of $30 billion, per Forbes.
Melinda Gates' life post-divorce
Following her split from Bill Gates, Melinda Gates briefly dated a man named Jon Du Pre, a Fox News Host, but the relationship was short-lived.
What has not been short-lived is Melinda Gates' continuing dedication to philanthropy. In 2022, she formed the charitable organization Pivotal Ventures, which is, per the organization's site, dedicated "to accelerat[ing] the pace of social progress … through high-impact investments, philanthropy, partnerships, and advocacy, [it's] working to get more power in the hands of more people—especially women."
In late 2024, Melinda Gates was photographed holding hands with former Microsoft employee Phillip Vaughn, who now heads the craft beer delivery company Tavour.