Bill Gates has 60% of his $33 billion foundation portfolio in three stocks and none of them are tech companies

Bill Gates made his fortune building the world's most valuable technology company. His foundation's investment portfolio looks nothing like it.

Despite co-founding Microsoft and maintaining a net worth of more than $100 billion, Gates has concentrated 60% of the Gates Foundation Trust's $33 billion portfolio of publicly traded US stocks in three holdings: Berkshire Hathaway, Canadian National Railway and a waste management company. Not a single technology stock features among his top three positions.

The foundation, Gates's primary vehicle for deploying billions toward global health and equality, maintains the investment portfolio to help manage its grant-making operations. Quarterly SEC filings give investors a window into what Gates and his investment managers hold, and the composition consistently surprises observers who assume a tech founder would invest in tech.

Berkshire Hathaway: 22.5% of the portfolio

The largest position in the Gates Foundation's portfolio is Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate built by Warren Buffett and now led by Greg Abel. The holding traces its origins to Buffett's annual donations to the foundation, which came in the form of Berkshire Class B shares. Buffett's gifts came with a stipulation that the foundation must deploy the full value of each donation plus 5% of its other assets within a year to remain eligible for the next gift.

Berkshire's core insurance business has produced solid results in 2026. Underwriting income grew approximately 4.5% through the first six months of the year despite continued pricing pressure. Its railroad business, BNSF, continues to lag market leaders in profitability, but Abel has made operational improvement a priority since taking over as chief executive at the start of the year, with operating margin improving from 29.7% in the first half of 2025 to 30.8% in the same period this year.

Abel has also been buying back stock aggressively. Between April and July, Berkshire repurchased approximately $8 billion worth of its own shares, a signal that both Abel and Buffett believe the stock trades below its intrinsic value. Between equities, cash and Treasuries, Berkshire holds approximately $720 billion in investable assets. Its biggest portfolio move of 2026 has been a significant build in Alphabet, which is now its third or fourth largest equity position depending on the day.

Canadian National Railway: 19.7% of the portfolio

The second largest position is Canadian National Railway, which operates a tri-coastal rail network connecting Canada's west coast to its east coast and running through the center of the United States to the Gulf of Mexico.

Despite headwinds from tariffs and an escalating US-Canada trade war, CN Rail posted 11% revenue growth year on year in the second quarter. Management raised its full-year earnings per share guidance alongside those results, a signal of confidence in the back half of the year even as tariffs continue to weigh on forest products, fertilizers and international intermodal shipments. The company generated approximately $1.35 billion in free cash flow through the first half of the year and plans to return approximately $2.1 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks in 2026, having already repurchased approximately $980 million worth of shares.

WM: 17.8% of the portfolio

The third position is WM, formerly known as Waste Management, America's leading waste collection and disposal company. Its network of landfills creates one of the most durable competitive moats in any industry: regulations make building new landfills practically impossible, giving WM pricing power that most businesses can only dream about.

Adjusted operating margin improved by 40 basis points year on year last quarter, and cash flow from operations climbed 12%. The company has been shedding low-margin, low-growth businesses to improve free cash flow quality and increase returns to shareholders. Its 2024 acquisition of Stericycle, a medical waste management company, is expected to contribute mid-to-high single-digit revenue growth for the foreseeable future.

Why no tech stocks

The absence of technology stocks among Gates's top holdings reflects a deliberate portfolio construction philosophy that prioritizes wide economic moats, predictable cash flows and durable competitive advantages over growth. Berkshire's insurance and railroad businesses, Canadian National's irreplaceable rail network and WM's landfill monopoly all share the same structural characteristic: they are extraordinarily difficult to compete with and generate reliable free cash flows regardless of economic conditions.

Gates plans to give away 99% of his wealth within the next 19 years, making the foundation's investment returns a direct input into how much capital can be deployed toward global health and development causes. That philanthropic mandate makes capital preservation and steady compounding more important than the kind of growth-oriented investing that built his fortune in the first place.