Charles Feeney, Who Made a Fortune and Then Gave It Away, Dies at 92 (2024)

Charles F. Feeney, a pioneer of duty-free shops and a shrewd investor in technology start-ups who gave away nearly all of his $8 billion fortune to charity, much of it as quietly as he had made it, died on Monday in San Francisco. He was 92.

His death was announced by the Atlantic Philanthropies, a group of foundations he had started and funded since the early 1980s. He lived in a modest rented apartment in San Francisco.

In December 2016, with his donation of $7 million to his alma mater, Cornell University, for student community-service work, Mr. Feeney officially emptied the Atlantic Philanthropies’ accounts. It also fulfilled his pledge to give away virtually all of his wealth before he died, a rarity in the philanthropic world.

With what he called decent but unextravagant provisions made for his five adult children, Mr. Feeney said he retained about $2 million for himself, a small fraction of the billions he had amassed over six decades in business and given away over 35 years while often going to great lengths to conceal his identity, wealth and philanthropies.

“Chuck Feeney is a remarkable role model, and the ultimate example of giving while living,” his fellow billionaire Bill Gates told Forbes in 2012. Another of the world’s richest people, Warren Buffett, presented a Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award to Mr. Feeney in 2014, calling him “my hero and Bill Gates’s hero — he should be everybody’s hero.”

Unlike philanthropists whose names are publicized, celebrated at banquets and emblazoned on building facades and museum wings, Mr. Feeney gave anonymously to universities, medical institutions, scientific endeavors, human rights groups, peace initiatives and scores of causes intended to improve lives in the United States, Vietnam, South Africa, Australia, Israel, Jordan and other lands.