Nati Harnik/AP
- Warren Buffett has donated about $2 billion in total to each of his three children's foundations.
- Peter Buffett's NoVo Foundation is using some of the funds to revitalize Kingston, New York.
- The investor and his son disagree on some topics, but they both love their jobs.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Warren Buffett has donated about $2 billion worth of Berkshire Hathaway stock to each of his three children's foundations over the past 15 years. Peter Buffett, his youngest child, has been using some of those funds to revitalize the city of Kingston, New York, he told The Wall Street Journal in a recent interview.
Buffett, a billionaire investor and Berkshire's CEO, pledged in 2006 to give more than 99% of his fortune to good causes. He reached the halfway point towards that goal last month, helped by his contribution of 14 million "B" shares to Peter's NoVo foundation so far. Those shares would be worth nearly $4 billion today, and represent the majority of the 17.5 million shares he's earmarked for his son's organization.
Peter has used his father's contributions to buy $13 million of farmland near Kingston and turn it into a local agricultural hub, The Journal reported. He has also financed a festival where artists could swap their pieces for healthcare, purchased an old Honda dealership and converted it into a home for a local food cooperative, and turned a local radio station into an ad-free, non-profit, community broadcaster, the newspaper said.
NoVo has also worked on other causes such as helping indigenous people and victims of domestic abuse, and supporting affordable-housing projects. Peter, a vocal critic of capitalism's shortcomings and a strong believer in workers' rights and community work, wants Kingston to exemplify a more compassionate form of capitalism, he told The Journal.
Peter and his father disagree on some subjects, but the Berkshire chief told The Journal that he doesn't support "unrestrained capitalism" and he and his son are "on the same page on the important things." Indeed, Peter told The Journal that he deeply respects his father's work and embraces his philosophy of doing something you love for a living, or "tap dancing to work."
Beyond his philanthropic work, Peter is best known as an Emmy-winning musician who missed out on an enormous fortune. When he turned 19 in 1977, he received $90,000 worth of Berkshire Hathaway stock as his inheritance, according to CNBC. He cashed in the stock, which would be worth over $200 million today, to chase his dream of a music career.
"I don't regret it for a second," Peter wrote about the decision in "Life Is What You Make It," his memoir. "I used my nest egg to buy something infinitely more valuable than money: I used it to buy time."