Big gifts can bring their own challenges. The investment tycoon has surpassed his own transfer last year by gifting $3.6 billion.

The trend of business tycoons making big gifts to philanthropic organizations continues. Warren Buffett, the renowned US investor, is donating $3.6 billion of his Berkshire Hathaway stock to charity, beating the $3.4 billion gift he made in 2018.

The investment guru, who is worth an estimated $88.6 billion in net terms (source: Forbes), is making the donation as part of his pledge to transfer more than 99 per cent of his fortune to philanthropic causes.

Buffett is a co-founder (along with Microsoft's Bill Gates) of the Giving Pledge. The program pulls together billionaires who promise to commit at least half of their wealth to philanthropic causes during their lifetimes or in their wills. So far, Buffett has reportedly transfered about 45 per cent of the stock he owned to five foundations.

The phenomenon of ultra-wealthy donors making big gifts has, for example, seen large transfers to educational institutions in the US and other parts of the world, as well as medical and environmental causes. Recent prominent examples include donations of media businessman and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. And reports have said that MacKenzie Bezos, whose divorce from Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, might see her collect a $37 billion payout, plans to commit half of her wealth to charity.

To some extent, these massive philanthropic transfers have echoes of similar ones at the end of the 19th century, when industrialists, such as Dale Carnegie and John D Rockefeller, made major donations. It is argued that these transfers help blunt some, if not all, of the criticism directed at those who acquire vast fortunes, even in an efficient free market economy.

However, donating big gifts carries complexities of its own, as Susan Winer, a member of this news organization's editorial advisory board, has explained.

See another example of a large gift here.