UNITED STATES: Jeff Bezos has pledged to donate his $124 billion (£110 billion) fortune to various organizations. He acknowledged that selecting the most deserving organizations to support has proven to be just as challenging as creating the Amazon company.
Bezos has not specified how much of his wealth will be donated to philanthropy or the causes that will likely receive most of his attention.
According to Forbes‘ ranking of the world’s billionaires, the 58-year-old, the fourth-richest person in the world, committed after giving Dolly Parton $100 million to donate to the charities of her choice as part of Bezos’s annual Courage and Civility award.
In a recent interview, Bezos commented on the award given to Parton, saying, “Conflict travels, conflict is interesting, and people do focus on conflict.”
Bezos has been criticized in the past for his relative lack of generosity toward charity organizations in comparison to certain fellow billionaires. Bezos grew Amazon from a startup in a leased garage into a $1 trillion global enterprise.
Bezos has not signed the Giving Pledge, which was established by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and called on the world’s wealthiest people to donate half of their wealth to charitable causes. More than 230 people have signed it, including Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
Bezos and his companion Lauren Sánchez, a journalist, turned philanthropist who he started dating in 2019 shortly after announcing his divorce from his wife of 25 years, claimed they were debating the best approach to donate his riches to charitable organizations.
After giving similar gifts to climate activist Van Jones and chef José Andrés as part of his Courage and Civility award, Bezos has now given $100 million to Dolly Parton.
The Bezos Earth Fund, which Sánchez co-chairs, will receive $10 billion from him over a ten-year period. Amazon is one of 300 firms that have pledged to lower their carbon footprint by the year 2040 in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement’s objectives.
MacKenzie Scott, Bezos’s ex-wife, who filed for divorce from her second husband, Dan Jewett, in September, won a record $38 billion settlement from Bezos, making her the fourth richest woman in the world.
The 52-year-old recently donated $3.8 billion to 465 organizations in less than a year. He has signed the Giving Pledge.
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