TOP SECRET Meeting of Billionaires

Photo-illustration: Everett Bogue; Photos: Getty Images, istockphoto

A TOP SECRET meeting of the world’s uber-billionaires took place to discuss the global financial crisis. The meeting was coordinated by Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire-Hathaway; Bill Gates, co founder of Microsoft; and David Rockefeller Jr., chairman of Rockefeller Financial Services. The clandestine meeting was held in the President’s Room at Rockefeller University in New York City at 3 p.m. on May 5th. Gates and Buffett were joined by billionaire moguls Oprah Winfrey, Ted Turner and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg along with heavyweight philanthropist George Soros. This gathering of the powerful elite was strategically left off each of their public schedules and hidden from the world press corp—sending conspiracy theorists into a feeding frenzy. Attendees told ABC News.com the meeting was “100 percent about philanthropy.”

In a personally written letter of invitation that was hand delivered to each billionaire, Gates, Buffett and Rockefeller cited, "the worldwide recession and the urgent need to plan for the future. They said they wanted to hear the views of a broad range of key leaders in the financial and philanthropic fields.” Each attendee was given 15 minutes to deliver a presentation on how they saw the future global economic climate, the future priorities for philanthropy, and what they felt the elite group should do.

According to one of the attendees, Bill Gates was the most-impressive speaker of the day, with Ted Turner the most-outspoken and Warren Buffet the most-insistent on his agenda for change. Oprah Winfrey was said to be in a “listening mode.”

Gates was worth an estimated $57B in 2008; more recently, Buffett clocked in at an estimated $37B—making them the richest Americans. Together the moguls have donated over $70 billion to charity since 1996, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.