2. Gordon Moore (Co-Founder of Intel)

Estimated worth: $3.8 billion 

Estimated donations: $5 billion (some of which came from Intel)

Charity: Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation 

The man credited with Moore's Law, along with wife Betty, awarded the largest donation ever given to a college—$600 million to his alma mater, Caltech. He said that he wants the gift to be used to keep Caltech at the forefront of research and technology. Moore was chairman of Caltech's board of trustees from 1994 to 2000, and continues as a trustee today. The library at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge is named after him and his wife Betty, as is the Moore Laboratories building (dedicated 1996) at Caltech. He has even used company stock to help finance and create his charity, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation which is catered towards improving scientific research, environmental protection, and higher education.

On December 6, 2007, Gordon Moore and his wife donated $200 million to Caltech and the University of California for the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope, the world's largest optical telescope. The telescope will have a mirror 30 meters across. This is nearly three times the size of the current record holder, Large Binocular Telescope.