Azim Premji on Promoter Equity Dilution

As the first Indian to sign the Giving Pledge in 2013, Premji has endowed the foundation he launched nearly twenty-five years earlier with over twenty-nine billion dollars in Wipro shares, per TIME's 2025 accounting — an updated cumulative figure that reflects subsequent top-ups beyond the 2019 twenty-one-billion transfer.

The giving pace escalated over a decade: in December 2010 Premji transferred 8.7% of Wipro (about two billion dollars then) to the foundation; in February 2013 an additional 12%; in July 2015 another 18%, taking his total contribution to 39%; and in March 2019 an additional 34%, taking the cumulative endowment to about twenty-one billion dollars and making him India's top philanthropist.

In 2009, the foundation reviewed its strategy and decided to scale up by creating institutions — district and state-level bodies working on teacher capacity development, plus a university focused on education and related human development domains. To enable this, Premji donated about 8.7% of Wipro (then worth roughly two billion dollars) in December 2010 to create the foundation's endowment.

Premji committed to transferring more of his wealth to scale up the foundation's endowment, framing the act as a moral obligation: those privileged to have wealth, he wrote, should contribute significantly to create a better world for the millions far less privileged. He pledged to continue acting on that belief — a commitment he would later exceed by transferring the majority of his Wipro stake.

In February 2013 Premji transferred an additional 295.53 million Wipro shares, representing 12% of the company. Cumulatively he had by then donated over 521 million shares — 20.2% of Wipro's total shareholding — with a January 2015 valuation of about five billion dollars. The Giving Pledge signing and the share transfer together formalised the largest philanthropic commitment by any Indian up to that point.