$ cat ./records/snowden-leaks-name-microsoft-as-the-first-company-in-the-nsas-pri-2013.txt
Snowden Leaks Name Microsoft as the First Company in the NSA's PRISM Program
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In June 2013, documents leaked by Edward Snowden to The Guardian and The Washington Post identified Microsoft — where Bill Gates remained chairman — as the first company enrolled, in 2007, in the U.S. National Security Agency's PRISM surveillance program. Subsequent reporting alleged Microsoft had helped the government access user communications, including engineering a way around its own encryption on Outlook.com and easing NSA access to SkyDrive and Skype. Microsoft denied granting any government direct or blanket access, saying it turns over customer data only in response to lawful, specific legal demands. The disclosures made the company a flashpoint in the debate over tech firms and state surveillance.
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Bill and Melinda Gates Receive the National Academy of Sciences' Public Welfare Medal
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2026
Gates Foundation Trust Sells Off the Last of Its Microsoft Stock
In the first quarter of 2026, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust sold its remaining Microsoft shares, fully exiting a position in the very company that created Gates's fortune — capping a long, deliberate diversification away from the stock. The endowment that funds Gates's philanthropy, managed separately from its grant-making through Cascade, is now anchored instead by Berkshire Hathaway, Waste Management, railroads, and heavy-equipment makers. The sale underscored how thoroughly Gates's giving had decoupled from Microsoft's day-to-day fortunes.
2026
Gates's Charitable Endowment Is Now Led by Berkshire, Not Microsoft
By 2026, the publicly disclosed stock portfolio of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust — the endowment that funds Gates's philanthropy — was led not by Microsoft but by Berkshire Hathaway, Waste Management, Canadian National Railway, Caterpillar, and Deere. Decades of diversification, plus Warren Buffett's stock gifts, left it concentrated in railroads, waste, heavy equipment, and Buffett's conglomerate, while Microsoft — the source of the original fortune — had largely been sold down. The unglamorous, value-oriented mix reflects the long stewardship of Gates's money manager, Michael Larson, through Cascade Investment.
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