Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has announced plans to give away the majority of his £107 billion fortune.
The 58-year-old announced the plans in a new interview, explaining that he wants to donate the bulk of his money to philanthropic causes after earning billions in part by founding Amazon in 1994.
The donation will go towards fighting climate change, as well as supporting people who can unify humanity as social and political divisions continue to create barriers between members of the public.
Speaking to CNN from his home in Washington, DC, Bezos and his girlfriend, Lauren Sánchez, said the pair are building the capacity to be able to give away this money'.
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When asked directly whether he plans to donate the majority of his wealth within his lifetime, Bezos responded: “Yeah, I do.”
However, Bezos declined in the interview to detail a specific percentage of his wealth or identify where it would be donated to.
Bezos and Sánchez have committed, however, to donating $10 billion, which works out to around just eight percent of his current net worth, to the Bezos Earth Fund.
The Fund is working to reduce the carbon footprint of construction-grade cement and steel, encouraging financial regulators to consider climate-related risks in their work, progressing data and mapping technologies to track carbon emissions and building natural, plant-based carbon sinks on a huge scale.
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He said in the interview: “The hard part is figuring out how to do it in a levered way. It’s not easy. Building Amazon was not easy. It took a lot of hard work, a bunch of very smart teammates, hard-working teammates, and I’m finding — and I think Lauren is finding the same thing — that charity, philanthropy, is very similar.”
The news of Bezos' decision comes after he and Sánchez awarded Dolly Parton with a $100 million prize for her philanthropic efforts.
Bezos said he and his partner agreed to completing their first interview together since their relationship began in 2019 to raise awareness on the Bezos Courage and Civility Award, which was granted to the musician this year.
Sánchez said: “When you think of Dolly. Look, everyone smiles, right? She is just beaming with light. And all she wants to do is bring light into other people’s worlds. And so we couldn’t have thought of someone better than to give this award to Dolly, and we know she’s going to do amazing things with it.”
Topics: News, Money, Jeff Bezos, Amazon
Emily Brown