Kathmandu, May 4. Bill and Melinda Gates have announced divorce after 27 years of marriage.

The couple is amongst the five richest couples in the world, holding a combined fortune of $124 billion.

The couple has issued a joint statement in Twitter stating, “After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage”

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— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 3, 2021

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will be continued to be run jointly and work for global health, poverty and other issues around the world, along with funding IT education in the US. The announcement has come in less than two weeks after the pair appeared virtually at an event for healthcare workers.

Bill co-founded Microsoft in 1975 and was a billionaire when the pair got married in 1994. The couple have three children, Jennifer, 25, Rory, 21, and Phoebe, 18.

Bill is the world’s 4th richest person with his estimated $124 billion fortune. He has donated atleast $40 billion to the Gates Foundation since 1994.

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— Melinda French Gates (@melindagates) May 3, 2021

The Gates couple has also collaborated with Warren Buffet to establish ‘Giving Pledge’, a promise to give at least half of their wealth to charity. Mark Zuckerberg, Mike Bloomberg and George Lucas, along with more than 170 of the world’s richest people have signed up.

This is the second divorce amongst the super rich after Amazon’s chief executive Jeff Bezos parted ways with his wife in 2019.