Jennifer Gates, 26, knew from an early age that she would have to forge her own path because she wouldn’t be inheriting her parents’ billions, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t living a life of luxury.
The medical student, who is the oldest child of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his ex-wife, Melinda Gates, has moved into a $51 million penthouse in Manhattan’s trendy Tribeca neighborhood, the New York Post reported.
Jennifer was born in Bellevue, Washington, on April 26, 1996, and is the oldest of their three children.
She is three years old than her brother, Rory, and six years older than her sister, Phoebe.
She and her siblings grew up in her parents’ 66,000-square-foot mansion overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. DailyMail reports.
The property, worth an estimated $131 million, is nicknamed ‘Xanadu 2.0,’ a reference to the fictional estate in the movie ‘Citizen Kane.’
The Gates family’s incredible fortune afforded Jennifer and her siblings a wealth of opportunities, but her parents taught them to be curious about the world and have a strong work ethic.
Jennifer and her husband, Olympic showjumper Nayel Nassar, 32, are expecting their first child, a baby girl, this year, and they have plenty of room for their growing family in their new six-bedroom home.
The move comes six years after her father, Bill, shared that he will be giving the vast majority of his billions away to avoid spoiling his children.
However, his oldest daughter has already proven to have a strong work ethic, and the impending arrival of his first grandchild may have swayed him to purchase her the lavish penthouse.
As Jennifer prepares for motherhood and settles into her new home, FEMAIL has taken a look back at the privileged upbringing that led to her becoming an accomplished equestrian and an aspiring doctor.
Jennifer has privileged upbringing in her parents’ $131 million mansion. Her father, Bill, famously co-founded Microsoft after dropping out of Harvard and became the richest person in the world in 1995, the year before she was born.Â
He has a current estimated net worth of $106.4 billion, according to Forbes, making him the sixth richest person in the world.
Bill and Melinda followed the ‘Love and Logic’ parenting model founded by former principal Jim Fay, school psychologist Charles Fay, and psychiatrist Foster W. Cline in 1977.
The approach dictates that parents be firm yet loving with when setting limits for their children while also refraining from emotional reactions, threats, and warnings.
The goal is to teach children ‘consequences and healthy decision-making’ by having them solve their own problems and experience failure with their parents’ empathy and support, according to the Love and Logic website.
In addition to following the 1970s parenting style, Bill and Melinda raised their children Catholic and regularly attended church with them to give them a strong moral backbone.
‘The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important. We’ve raised our kids in a religious way; they’ve gone to the Catholic church that Melinda goes to and I participate in,’ Bill told Rolling Stone in 2014.
‘I’ve been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that’s kind of a religious belief.
I mean, it’s at least a moral belief.’ Philanthropy is important to both of Jennifer’s parents, who founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fight poverty, disease, and inequity around the world.
The former couple had enough money to hire dozens of housekeepers, but they made time to do the dishes and other household chores with Jennifer and her siblings every night to teach them responsibility.
‘There are still things that we do in our home that I wanted to make sure we did as parents, and that our kids participated, so they would know what it was to grow up and have responsibilities,’ Melinda explained in an interview with Business Insider in 2019.
The Gates children weren’t allowed to get cellphones until they were 14, and their father made it clear that they needed to get jobs because they won’t be inheriting his massive fortune.
Jennifer credited her parents for making her a lifelong learner and always supporting her interests in a 2020 interview with Sidelines Magazine.
‘As a young kid, they always talked to me like I was an adult and weren’t willing to shy around difficult conversations,’ she said.
‘I grew up hearing about children’s mortality at the dinner table, about polio, about the HIV/AIDs epidemic.
‘The medical student recalled how her mother once walked in on her playing ‘doctor’ as a child. She was telling one of her dolls that she had HIV/AIDS, and she was going to help her.
‘My mom thought at that point maybe they were talking a bit too much about global health at the dinner table,’ she said with a laugh.
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