Best friends
Gates and Buffett's friendship began on July 5, 1991. Gates' mother, Mary, invited Meg Greenfield, an editor at the Washington Post, to her home. Greenfield brought her friend Buffett along.
Overcoming the initial surprise, the two men quickly became "shared". Since then, they have often participated in political and charitable activities together.
The two also had many extremely lovely entertainment games such as participating in the newspaper throwing challenge at Berkshire Hathaway's annual general meeting or trying to cushion together.
If Bill Gates and Warren Buffet held the second and fourth richest positions on the planet in 2018, this year, they have risen to second and third place.
According to the latest update to the list of richest people in the world from Forbes magazine, Bill Gates owns a fortune worth 96.5 billion USD, the second richest person in the world. Warren Buffet followed with assets of $82.5 billion.
"We need to pay higher taxes"
Earning billions of dollars a year, both Gates and Buffet have the same view on paying taxes. Responding to the press, billionaire Bill Gates once said he paid $10 billion in taxes, and he believes that rich people like himself should pay more.
I think our system could improve a lot if the rich paid higher in taxes. If people want the government to do more, they need more funding to improve education and health services. So I paid 10 billion USD but I should have paid more for the interest from my business, Bill Gates said.
In addition, Bill Gates wants to propose a huge tax when the rich are inheriting a huge amount of capital.
For his part, answering on CNBC, legendary investor Warren Buffett also said: "I don't need to reduce taxes".
In addition to sharing the same view on paying taxes, Gates and Buffett are now using their money to fund charitable activities.
In 2010, Gates and Buffett, along with Gates' wife Melinda, founded the Giving Pledge charity commitment. Through this, super-rich individuals commit to donating at least half of their assets to charity.
Gates once said: "We believe that is the basic responsibility of any rich person. When you have taken good care of your children, the best way to use your surplus assets is to give them to society.
To date, the organization has spent more than $4 billion a year on disease prevention, education improvement, vaccine distribution and poverty reduction around the world.
