China can't stop talking about the Bill and Melinda Gates divorce

May 5, 2021 at 09:12

Bill and Melinda are "the most affectionate couple I've seen among celebrity entrepreneurs," Lee wrote in a Weibo post.

Hong Kong (CNN Business) - The divorce of Bill and Melinda Gates has sent shockwaves though China, where the Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder has achieved a level of fame unlike almost any other Western entrepreneur.

The "Bill Gates' divorce" hashtag had generated more than 830 million views and 66,000 discussion posts on China's Twitter-like platform Weibo by Wednesday — far surpassing the 91 million views accumulated when Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott divorced in 2019.
Weibo users fretted about everything, from how the couple would divide their massive fortune to whether the divorce would affect Microsoft or their charitable foundation. Through their philanthropic organization, the pair have spent $53.8 billion on global health, poverty alleviation and other initiatives. Bill Gates is worth about $146 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and the couple has pledged to give the vast majority of their wealth away to charity.

"You and Melinda have made huge contributions to people around the world. Even if you don't hold hands together in future life, I hope your foundation can still continue and help more people," one Weibo user wrote, responding to a post on Bill Gates' official Weibo account that announced the divorce in Chinese.

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