He had always paid a tithe a tenth of his earnings to the church

He had always paid a tithe, a tenth of his earnings, to the church. It is still the largest charity after Bill and Melinda Gates’s foundation, with about $12bn (£8.25bn) in assets, which it distributes to progressive causes such as pro-abortion groups and media watchdogs.John D Rockefeller1839-1937Bill Gates is most often compared with John D Rockefeller, whose reputation followed a similar trajectory: from pioneering entrepreneur to greedy monopolist to benign philanthropist. Today, the Getty Foundation gives money to projects to promote and preserve the visual arts.Henry Ford1863-1947The founder of the Ford Motor Company created the modern car economy. Having introduced factory assembly lines, he brought down the cost of cars at the same time as being able to pay his workers significantly more than his rivals.He and his son, Edsel, created the Ford Foundation in 1936 to support projects such as the Henry Ford Hospital which he founded in Detroit He eventually gifted most of his wealth to the foundation. He almost retired then to become a West Coast playboy, but returned to the family empire and became one of the world’s earliest billionaires.Getty ploughed his fortune into collecting art and antiquities, which he regarded as a civilising influence on society, and opened the J Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California, in 1954. He supported university institutes to promote technological innovation. And he made numerous donations for public buildings across the US and Scotland.

In total, it is thought that he gave away $380m.J Paul Getty1892-1976Born into a wealthy Minnesota oil family, his early ventures in the industry were subsidised by his father, but he was wildly successful and had made his first million by the age of 24. “Until we reduce the burden on the poor so that there is no real gap between us and them, that will always be our priority I am not so foolish as to say that will happen But that’s our goal.”There is a huge job to do. After retiring at 65, he devoted the rest of his life to giving his fortune away, focusing on projects aimed at improving public education. He built 3,000 public libraries in Scotland, the US and other English-speaking countries. Their products were in high demand because of the building of the American railways, and Carnegie built the world’s first $1bn company. The richest man in the world is becoming the greatest philanthropist of all time.Great and good: the philanthropists’ clubAndrew Carnegie1835-1919The Scottish-born radical, whose family emigrated to the United States when he was 12 years old, amassed a fortune from ironworks and steel rolling mills.

Malaria alone is the single biggest killer of Africa’s children. As many as three million, mostly under the age of five, die each year. Some estimate that there are more than five hundred million cases annually.”It just blows my mind how little money has been spent on malaria research,” Gates has said “We can save many lives for hundreds of dollars each. What has prevented the rich world from attempting this? Do we really not care because it doesn’t affect us? Is that what it is?”As the years pass, Bill Gates, the merciless businessman with ambitions for world domination, is giving steadily way to Bill Gates, the compassionate scientist whose goal is to save millions of lives. He will stay as chairman of the world’s biggest software company, he hopes for the rest of his life. “I don’t see a time in the future when I won’t be the chairman of the company,” he said.

But meantime, each year his foundation will acquire another 5 per cent of Warren Buffett’s fortune for as long as at least one of Gateses – Bill, now 50, or Melinda, 41 – remains active in it. And since Buffett’s investment company Berkshire Hathaway has given its investors a compound annual return of 21.5 per cent, this would mean the value of his gift will steadily increase over time.It will all be more money for the fight against diseases as malaria, Aids and tuberculosis “Global health is our lifelong commitment,” Gates says. His announcement, they said, coincides with Microsoft’s falling share price and troublesome new flagship product, Windows Vista.Bill Gates shrugs. “But with plain old bed nets, sprayed with insecticide, you can get rid of half the malaria deaths in Africa.”Gates has responded not by abandoning his high-tech approach but by giving more money to fund the low-tech solutions, too. He recently gave a $35m grant to Zambia to fund nets, drugs and insecticide for a pilot project with a target to cut deaths by 75 per cent within three years. “We need to prove that children don’t have to die,” Brian Chituwo, the Zambian health minister, said. “And with this money I think we can.” The world can expect more initiatives, not fewer.