Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has decided that his annual donations to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are so 2006. He's now redirecting his billions to foundations run by his own family, apparently deciding that charity begins at home - or at least far away from Jeffrey Epstein's orbit.

Buffett, 95, had pledged in 2006 to donate Berkshire Hathaway shares to the Gates Foundation "throughout my lifetime." But in a recent move, the Gates Foundation was conspicuously absent from the list of recipients for his latest stock donation. Instead, the shares will be split among four foundations tied to the Buffett family, with a plan to offload his remaining stock by 2034. "Of course, mortality is unpredictable," Buffett said, in what might be the understatement of the century for a nonagenarian.

The timing is suspicious: Gates' ties to Jeffrey Epstein were thrust into the spotlight when the DOJ released files in January. Buffett hasn't mentioned Gates or Epstein by name, but he told CNBC in March that he hadn't spoken to Gates "since the whole thing was unveiled," adding, "I don't want to be in a position where I know things... to be called as a witness." Nothing says "I'm out" like a preemptive legal disclaimer.

Buffett has donated a whopping $47 billion to the Gates Foundation over 20 years. The foundation, now led by Bill Gates alone after his 2021 divorce and Melinda French Gates' 2024 resignation, said it's "grateful" and noted it has Bill's $200 billion commitment to keep things running through 2045. So no panic yet.

Gates testified before Congress in June about his Epstein relationship, admitting he should never have met with him. Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, had been introduced to Gates in 2011 under the pretense of raising billions for global health. Gates claimed he didn't fully grasp the extent of Epstein's crimes, despite Epstein's 2008 guilty plea for soliciting a minor. We all make mistakes, Bill - just most of us don't make them with convicted sex offenders while running a global charity.