Billionaire Bill Gates wrapped up the end of 2023 by sharing a glimpse into his New Year's Eve activities on Instagram. The 68-year-old was captured in a photo, diligently working on a jigsaw puzzle in front of his fireplace, leaving his Instagram followers without any uncertainty about his year-end plans.
"The last thing I have to finish before 2024," Gates wrote in the caption, alongside the image of his cozy setup at a table by a fireplace.
Gates has openly expressed his fondness for puzzles and other activities that stimulate the brain, such as Wordle. In a 2018 PEOPLE interview featuring both Bill and Melinda Gates, conducted prior to their divorce three years later, Bill said, "We do more jigsaw puzzles than most people."
The New Year's Eve moment occurred just a few days after the Microsoft co-founder reflected on the significance of spending time with his children throughout the year.
“It’s been a special joy to watch my children grow up to become invaluable sources of wisdom in their own right,” Gates wrote in his annual year-end blog post. “One of the highlights of my year was sharing the stage with Phoebe, my youngest, at the foundation’s Goalkeepers event.”
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In September, the 21-year-old Stanford University student, leveraging her influential family's platform to champion various causes, participated in and moderated a panel at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Goalkeepers event in New York City.
In the blog post, Gates said that he counts on his children — Jennifer Gates, 27, Rory Gates, 24, and Phoebe — to "keep me up to date on how young people see the world — and on the latest TikTok trends."
"I’m looking forward to spending the holidays with them and recharging a bit," he added. “When I was my kids’ age, I didn’t believe in vacations or weekends. But as I got older — and especially since I became a father — I realized there is more to life than work.”
This year, Gates has also stepped out several times with Paula Hurd, the widow of Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, who died in October 2019.
They were seen together in public months before their relationship became official, including sitting side by side at the Laver Cup in September 2022 and the Australian Open in January 2023.
The news about their relationship surfaced about two years after Gates and his ex-wife Melinda revealed they were ending their 27-year marriage.
A significant moment in 2023 was Gates becoming a grandfather when his eldest daughter welcomed her first child, a baby girl.
He went on to celebrate the joys of grandparenthood in a post on his Instagram page in honor of Grandparents Day in September. “Becoming a grandparent has given me a whole new lens to see the world through,” he wrote.
"It keeps me motivated to ensure my granddaughter — and all our grandchildren — inherit a better world than they were born into,” he added.
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