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Today, we will talk about these stories:
- Bill Gates Foundation Cuts All Ties with Microsoft — After 25 Years
- OpenAI Wants to See Your Bank Account — And 200M People Might Let It
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Bill Gates Foundation Cuts All Ties with Microsoft — After 25 Years
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has done something unthinkable: it fully exited its stake in Microsoft, selling the remaining shares worth about $3.2 billion — ending a decades-long financial association with the company Gates co-founded, for the first time since the foundation’s creation in 2000.
The numbers:
- As of March 2025, the trust held 28.5 million Microsoft shares valued at $10.7 billion — roughly 26% of its entire portfolio.
- The biggest sell-off came in Q3 2025, when the trust dumped nearly 65% of its position.
- The final 7.7 million shares were sold in early 2026, closing the book on this investment entirely.
Why it’s NOT a panic move: The exit appears far more practical than emotional — driven by portfolio diversification, valuation optimization, and funding obligations, not a loss of confidence in Microsoft.
The bigger picture: This is a philanthropic portfolio maturing and de-risking — not a signal that Microsoft is in trouble. Notably, while Gates was selling, investors like Bill Ackman were loading up on Microsoft stock.
OpenAI Wants to See Your Bank Account — And 200M People Might Let It
OpenAI launched a new set of personal finance tools in preview for ChatGPT Pro subscribers in the US, letting them connect their accounts and ask questions ranging from spending analysis to future financial planning.
How it works: OpenAI partnered with Plaid to manage account connections, supporting over 12,000 financial institutions including Chase, Fidelity, Schwab, Robinhood, and Capital One. Once accounts are synced, users get a dashboard showing portfolio performance, spending, subscriptions, and upcoming payments.
The strategic move behind it: The launch comes just one month after OpenAI acquired the team behind personal finance startup Hiro, backed by Ribbit and General Catalyst. And the timing isn’t random — OpenAI is pitching GPT-5.5 as meaningfully better at reasoning through the complex, context-dependent questions personal finance requires.
The big number: More than 200 million people already ask ChatGPT questions about personal finance every month. Now OpenAI wants to turn that into actual data-backed advice.
What it can (and can’t) do: ChatGPT can only read balances, transactions, investments, and liabilities — it cannot see full account numbers or make any changes to your accounts.
The trust question: Users can disconnect accounts, delete financial memories, and use temporary chats that block financial account access entirely. But handing your full financial picture to an AI company — one that trains on user data — remains a valid concern many haven’t fully thought through.
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