文章导读：
本文选自《华尔街日报》5月4日文章。北京时间5月4日凌晨，世界顶级富豪比尔盖茨与妻子梅琳达盖茨同时在推特上发表声明，宣布结束27年的婚姻，理由是“we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives（我们不再认为我们可以在人生的下一阶段作为夫妻共同成长）”。
很久之前，比尔·盖茨在接受媒体采访时，主持人问：“请问到现在为止，你认为你做的最好的决定是什么？”比尔盖茨说：“我有幸遇见梅琳达，让我能在人生旅程中有她陪伴，所以我认为选择对的人结婚是至关重要的。”他的这段话让我们对婚姻有美好的憧憬，原来顶级富豪的追求也可以如此朴素美好。
今早的离婚声明除了让我们感到震惊惋惜外，人们更津津乐道的是他们千亿美元的资产分割问题。
《华盛顿邮报》对这对夫妻的离婚声明做了简单阐述，但即便如此，文章阅读量也迅速登上第一：
《纽约时报》也第一时间对此事作出报道，关注两人共同的事业，和曾经出现的关系破裂的点滴迹象：
《华尔街日报》则关注二人的财产分割问题，从他们相识到结婚到共创盖茨基金会到离婚，回顾这段婚姻始末：
而《金融时报》从二人的事业、财产分割等角度报道了二人的离婚：
本文对《华尔街日报》这篇文章进行精读，帮助大家了解盖茨夫妇离婚始末，以及离婚对二人资产的影响。如果本文对你有所帮助，欢迎点赞转发，非常感谢！
选文精讲
Bill and Melinda Gates to End Marriage 比尔盖茨和梅琳达离婚The Microsoft co-founder and his wife, who is co-chair of their philanthropic foundation, have been married 27 years这位微软联合创始人和他的妻子——也是二人慈善基金会的联合主席，结婚27年了Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates, who is co-chair of their philanthropic foundation, are ending their 27-year marriage, according to a statement posted on both their verified Twitter accounts.微软公司(Microsoft Corp.)联合创始人比尔·盖茨和他的妻子梅琳达·盖茨（也是二人慈善基金会的联合主席）将结束他们27年的婚姻，二人在他们官方认证的推特账号上发布了此声明。“After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” said the statement, which was signed by both people.这份由两人共同签署的声明称:“我们在经过一番深思熟虑和努力后，决定结束婚姻关系。”The couple have three children together and jointly formed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which oversees the charitable ventures to which the billionaire philanthropist couple have devoted their fortune.这对亿万富翁慈善家夫妇育有三个孩子，并共同成立了梅琳达-盖茨基金会来管理他们的慈善事业，这对夫妇也将他们的财产捐赠给了该基金会。“We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives,” they said.他们说:“我们仍然对这一使命有着共同的信念，我们将继续在基金会一起工作，但我们不再认为我们能在人生的下一阶段共同成长。”Mr. Gates, 65, last year announced he was stepping down from the boards of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Microsoft, the software company he founded in 1975 with childhood friend Paul Allen.65岁的比尔盖茨去年宣布将辞去伯克希尔哈撒韦公司和微软的董事职务，微软是盖茨与儿时好友保罗·艾伦于1975年创立的软件公司。Mr. Gates built Microsoft into one of the most dominant forces in the then still emerging business of personal computing. In 2000, he handed the role of CEO to longtime colleague Steve Ballmer. He scaled back involvement in day-to-day operations of Microsoft in 2008, focusing more on the foundation’s work. He remained active at the Redmond, Wash.,-based company as its chairman until 2014, when Satya Nadella became CEO and Mr. Gates became a regular board member.
- day-to-day operation: 日常业务
比尔盖茨在个人电脑行业还处于新兴阶段时，就将微软打造成了最具主导力量的公司之一。2000年，他将CEO一职交给了长期共事的同事史蒂夫·鲍尔默。2008年，他减少了对微软日常运营的参与，更多地专注于基金会的工作。他在位于华盛顿州雷德蒙德的公司仍然很活跃，担任该公司的董事长，直到2014年，萨蒂亚·纳德拉成为首席执行长，比尔盖茨成为常规董事会成员。Mr. Gates’s personal stake in Microsoft is worth around $26 billion, according to FactSet.据FactSet的数据，比尔盖茨在微软的个人股份价值约260亿美元。At the foundation, Ms. Gates, born Melinda French, has played a high-profile public role on par with that of her husband. She has represented the organization both in remote places and political power centers.
在盖茨基金会，梅琳达盖茨（原名梅琳达·弗兰奇）与丈夫一样，扮演了一个高调的公众角色。无论在偏远地区还是政治权力中心，她都曾代表该基金会。The foundation says it aims to fight poverty, disease and inequity and gives away billions of dollars annually in direct grants. It has committed more than $1.75 billion to back the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic, including efforts to produce 100 million doses of vaccines for poorer countries.
该基金会表示，它的目标是与贫困、疾病和不平等作斗争，每年以直接赠款的形式捐赠数十亿美元。它已承诺提供超过17.5亿美元，用于支持全球应对新冠大流行，包括努力为较贫穷国家生产1亿剂疫苗。Forbes said the organization is the world’s largest private charitable foundation.Ms. Gates also created Pivotal Ventures in 2015, an investment company, independent of the foundation, working on advancing social progress in the U.S.梅琳达还于2015年创立了Pivotal Ventures，这是一家独立于盖茨基金会的投资公司，致力于推动美国的社会进步Mr. Gates and Warren Buffett in 2010 kick-started the so-called Giving Pledge to encourage U.S. tycoons to start making donations earlier in their lives, while they can still be involved in choosing how to spend it. The Giving Pledge has expanded with more than 200 people committing to the initiative from 25 countries.
2010年，盖茨和沃伦·巴菲特启动了所谓的“捐赠誓言”(Giving Pledge)活动，以鼓励美国大亨们在他们能够参与选择如何使用这笔钱的时候，尽早开始捐款。“捐赠承诺”已经扩大到来自25个国家的200多人承诺参与。Mr. Gates is listed by Forbes as the world’s fourth wealthiest person—with a net worth of $130.5 billion—after Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, French luxury-goods tycoon Bernard Arnault and his family, and Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk.在《福布斯》的全球富豪榜上，比尔盖茨位列第四，净资产达1,305亿美元，排在亚马逊创始人贝佐斯、法国奢侈品大亨阿尔诺及其家族和特斯拉首席执行官埃隆·马斯克之后。Most of the Gates family’s wealth is held by a personal investment firm called Cascade Investment LLC.盖茨家族的大部分财富都由一家名为Cascade investment LLC的个人投资公司持有。Mr. Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie Scott, divorced in 2019 after being married for 25 years, during which Mr. Bezos built one of the world’s most valuable companies.贝佐斯和妻子麦肯齐·斯科特在结婚25年后于2019年离婚，在这段婚姻期间，贝佐斯创建了世界上最有价值的公司之一。Ms. Scott, who has devoted much of her time to philanthropic efforts, recently remarried. She said in a Medium post late last year that she had given away more than $4 billion of her fortune.斯科特女士最近再婚了，她把大部分时间都花在了慈善事业上。去年年底，她在Medium网站的一篇文章中说，她已经捐出了40多亿美元的财产。Ms. Gates, aged 56, grew up in Dallas and earned a master’s in business administration at Duke University before joining Microsoft, where she worked on developing multimedia products, according to the foundation’s website. Four months after starting at Microsoft, she met the then-CEO at a dinner during a business trip to New York. He asked her on a date when they ran into each other again in the Microsoft parking lot.
梅琳达盖茨现年56岁，在达拉斯长大，在加入微软之前获得了杜克大学工商管理硕士学位，在微软从事多媒体产品开发。在微软工作四个月后，她在去纽约出差的一次晚宴上遇到了时任微软首席执行官的比尔盖茨。当他们在微软的停车场再次相遇时，他向她提出了约会。She could be in line for half of the couple’s wealth, if they divorce in a so-called community-property state such as Washington, where Microsoft is based, or California, where they own property. The couple last year paid $43 million for an oceanfront home near San Diego in one of the largest deals recorded in the area.
- be in line for: 很可能得到、有得到…的机会
- community-property：夫妻共有财产
如果两人在号称“夫妻共同财产”的州离婚，比如微软总部所在地华盛顿州或两人拥有房产的加利福尼亚州，那么梅琳达将有望获得两人一半的财产。去年，这对夫妇以4300万美元的价格在圣地亚哥附近购买了一处海滨住宅，这是该地区有史以来最大的交易之一。
