More than 250 wealthy people have signed the Giving Pledge, a promise to dedicate a majority of their wealth to philanthropy. But many haven’t followed through on it, spurring criticism from one of the Giving Pledge’s founders, Melinda French Gates.
“Have they given enough? No,” French Gates said in an interview with Wired published in December 2025, referring to her fellow billionaire class and those who have signed the Giving Pledge.
But one philanthropist has gone above and beyond without even signing the Giving Pledge: George Soros, the 95-year-old Hungarian-American investor and political donor.
He founded Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Foundations, a network of international charities supporting democracy, human rights, and social reform. He’s committed more than $32 billion to philanthropy since 1984, and is one of the most generous philanthropists in the world. According to Forbes, he’s given away a whopping 76% of his net worth, beating out Warren Buffett, who has given away 30% of his. To be sure, Buffett has donated a higher dollar amount, totaling more than $60 billion.
But many billionaire philanthropists haven’t given away nearly that much money or that percentage of their wealth. Fifteen years into the Giving Pledge, a July 2025 report from the Institute for Policy Studies found just one living couple among the original 57 signatories—John and Laura Arnold—has actually given away half of their wealth. The report labeled the pledge “unfulfilled, unfulfillable, and not our ticket to a fairer, better future.”
Part of the problem is just plain math. The 32 original U.S. pledgers who are still billionaires have grown roughly 283% richer since they signed, the IPS found, because their fortunes are compounding faster than they can give them away. That’s evident in the MacKenzie Scott paradox. Even though she’s become one of the most prolific philanthropists of our time, having given away $26 billion, her net worth continues to grow due to the power of Amazon shares she received upon her divorce from founder Jeff Bezos.
Meanwhile, roughly 80% of what Giving Pledge donors have donated flowed into private foundations and donor-advised funds, vehicles that can hold wealth for years without moving it to working charities. However, a Giving Pledge spokesperson called the IPS report “misleading” for excluding gifts to foundations, telling CNBC in 2025 the pledge has “helped create new norms of generosity.”
To be sure, Soros himself routes his own giving through his foundation network. But the money has largely gone out the door: Forbes estimated in 2024 he had distributed $21 billion of the $32 billion he committed. And his foundations keep spending. In May, Open Society pledged another $300 million over five years to defend democratic rights and economic security in the U.S., even as the Trump administration singled out the Soros family for scrutiny.
“We are continuing our work unabated,” Laleh Ispahani, managing director for the U.S. at Open Society Foundations, told the AP. “We will not be intimidated into silence.”
Why does George Soros give away so much of his money?
Soros’ own explanation for why he gives has always been rooted in his history. Born in Budapest in 1930, he survived the Nazi occupation that killed more than 500,000 Hungarian Jews. His family endured by obtaining false papers and helping others do the same.
“1944, the year of the German occupation, was my formative experience,” Soros said in a statement. “Instead of submitting to our fate, we resisted an evil force that was much stronger than we were—yet we prevailed.”
That experience shaped a lifelong preoccupation with what he calls open societies. In January 2025, then-President Joe Biden awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
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