Jeff Bezos pledges to offer away most of his fortune

Amazon founder and former chief government Jeff Bezos has for the primary time pledged to offer away most of his $124bn fortune throughout his lifetime.

Requested throughout an interview on whether or not he intends to donate nearly all of his wealth, the US billionaire advised CNN: “Yeah, I do. The laborious half is determining how one can do it in a levered approach. It’s not simple.”

He added: “I’m discovering that . . . philanthropy shouldn’t be simple. It’s actually laborious. And there are a bunch of ways in which you are able to do ineffective issues, too.”

“So we’re constructing the capability to have the ability to give away this cash.”

The dedication got here after Bezos, 58, selected Dolly Parton because the third recipient of his Braveness and Civility Award, giving the nation and western singer $100mn to direct to charities of her alternative.

“Wow! Did you say 100 million {dollars}?” Parton joked at a ceremony on Saturday. “I’ll do my greatest to do good issues with this cash. Thanks, Jeff.”

Bezos launched the scheme final yr throughout a press convention following the primary manned flight for Blue Origin’s house tourism rocket, on which he had been on board.

He gave political commentator Van Jones and chef José Andrés every $100mn, with few restrictions aside from the funds needed to be distributed inside a 10-year timeframe. “No forms, no committees,” Bezos stated on the time.

These donations got here as Bezos confronted heavy criticism for the lavishness of his multibillion funding within the house race, with some deriding the grants as a hurried publicity stunt. Jones advised CNN that he had been notified of the donation simply days earlier than the announcement.

Bezos, who owns a 9.75 per cent stake in ecommerce group Amazon, in addition to the Washington Submit media organisation, has amassed a fortune value $124bn, based on Bloomberg knowledge, down nearly $70bn this yr following a fall in tech valuations.

Not like a number of of his billionaire friends, akin to Invoice Gates and Warren Buffett, Bezos has not signed the Giving Pledge, a marketing campaign to “encourage” the extraordinarily rich to offer away their cash. His ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, signed the pledge shortly after the pair’s divorce in 2019.

In addition to the Braveness and Civility Award, Bezos has pledged $10bn for an “Earth Fund”, an funding group targeted on preventing local weather change.