For the third year in a row, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg topped The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of top philanthropists, having donated $4.3 billion in 2025  — though his No. 1 spot was largely based on a technicality. As the outlet noted, Michael and Susan Dell would have taken the lead had their $6.25 billion pledge to put $250 in 25 million children’s investment accounts been taken into account. 

On Giving Tuesday 2025, the Dell Technologies founder and his wife announced what would be one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever made to American families alongside President Donald Trump at the White House. “It’s really an amazing moment that two people would do that kind of a contribution,” Trump said at the event. 

However, since it is not yet clear if the donation will be given to a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, The Chronicle of Philanthropy said that it could not count the commitment as a philanthropic donation. Instead, the Dells ranked fifth for $975 million in recognized charitable donations. The Chronicle also did not include MacKenzie Scott, who issued $7 billion in grants last year — which would have ranked her second after the Dells — as she did not release her giving records to the outlet. For similar procedural reasons, a number of major donors did not make the list. Additionally, The Chronicle only counts multiyear gifts in the year they are announced, not in the years that they are actually allocated, which can also throw off statistics.

All of this pushed Bloomberg to the lead. In 2025, the former mayor gave $4.3 billion to support arts, education, public health and programs to improve city government, expanding his lifetime charitable contributions to $25.4 billion, personally and through his Bloomberg Philanthropies. Bloomberg, who has served as the United Nations secretary-general’s special envoy on climate ambition and solutions since 2021,allocated $27.8 million to rebuild Israel’s north last year, but this year, he focused much of his philanthropy on combating climate change, especially after the Trump administration pulled out of theParis climate agreement.

Overall, the top 50 U.S. philanthropists gave a total of $22.4 billion to charity in 2025, up 35% above an inflation-adjusted $16.6 billion in 2024. The vast majority of donors earned their wealth through finance, with 20 donors giving $4.1 billion, followed by technology, with 12 donors giving $10 billion, and real estate, with four donors giving a total of $466.7 million. Out of all donations, $12 billion went to foundations, $2.5 billion to colleges and universities and $1.2 billion to hospitals and medical centers. The median gift size was $105 million.

The majority of donors came from New York or California, with ages ranging from 95 (investor Warren Buffett, who came in fourth after giving $1.3 billion)  to 36 (Jeff Sobrato, who made the list at 18 with his real estate developer family, which together gave $267.5 million). The median age is 73.5. Four philanthropists on the list are between 40-49, and two are under 40. 

Following Bloomberg on the list, Bill Gates came in second, giving $3.7 billion through the Gates Foundation to support gender equality, health, global development and U.S. education. Gates’ Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, who died in 2018, came in at third, giving $3.1 billion towards science and technology research collaborations focused on health care and medicine, the food system and agriculture and long-term solutions to environmental problems. 

Allen, who died at 65 from complications from non-Hodgkin lymphoma, gave instructions prior to his death that much of his funds should finance innovative, data-driven cancer research. Similarly, for many philanthropists on the list, their donations were personal and relationship-driven, including a  $2 billion pledge from Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, to the Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute. Other large gifts included $25 million to the Mary Cariola Foundation to help people with disabilities and a $5 million gift for caring for senior citizens.

For Blackstone COO Jon Gray and his wife, Mindy, who together came in at No. 34 and gave $63.6 million — primarily to their charitable foundation — it was important that they supported research of inherited cancers related to BRCA mutations, something the family knows intimately after Mindy’s sister died of BRCA-related ovarian cancer at age 44. BRCA mutations run high in Ashkenazi Jewish families. Last year, the Grays also donated $125 million to Tel Aviv University’s medical school (this does not appear in the accounting for the list as the gift is being made through their foundation). They gave toward other passion projects as well, including providing scholarships to 10 New York City students per year to attend a historically Black college or university.