Tax filings show that Pete Peterson put nearly half a billion dollars into the foundation that held this summit -- and that's just in four years.
Between 1985 and 2001, the nine families had collectively given half a billion dollars to charitable foundations promoting policies that were in their immediate self-interest, such as lowering income taxes and deregulating industry.
He and Chan gave almost a billion dollars to a Silicon Valley foundation to go toward unspecified future gifts, but they have not proceeded with reforms in other school districts, as originally planned.
When he died, though, he left instructions for the Bills to be sold and for most of the proceeds, about a billion dollars, to go to his foundation.
(He also gave a million dollars to a foundation connected to the Pope).
After selling Domino's, he placed two hundred and fifty million dollars in his foundation, which he had renamed the Ave Maria Foundation.
But their donation of property rights worth several hundred thousand dollars to the foundation gave them large federal and state tax deductions.
Shriver had been working for years with Bono, the U2 singer, on debt relief for poor nations, and the two were trying to raise three million dollars for their foundation DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa).
The Trump Administration is reportedly brokering a hefty arms deal worth a hundred billion dollars, though the foundation of the two countries' friendship seems less certain today, given the growing self-sufficiency in energy in the U.S. and questions about Saudi Arabia's long-term political stability.
A private foundation isn't the only way to give away a billion dollars.
