Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has come under a lot of scrutiny in the past and was accused of amassing too much power, too quickly. However, recently he made some claims that have some singing his praises.
Bezos is worth $124.1 billion and was criticized in the past for not signing the Giving Pledge, which is a campaign created by Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffet. The idea behind the pledge is to donate the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.
Bezos’ ex-wife McKenzie Scott did sign the pledge, however, in 2019 and has made a massive presence in the world of philanthropy, donating billions of dollars to various causes. Bezos and his wife divorced in 2019, and last year, Bezos stepped down as the CEO of Amazon to invest more time contributing to charitable causes.
Since then, he has pledged $10 billion to fight climate change and donated $510 billion to charity. Now, in an interview on CNN, he and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez has pledged to donate a $100 million grant to singer Dolly Parton who has been praised for her massive philanthropic contributions which helped to get the Moderna vaccine created.
Additionally, he stated that he intended to give away the majority of his fortune. Currently, he stated that he is working towards being able to do that. “The hard part is figuring out how to do it in a levered way,” Bezos said during the interview. “It’s not easy. Building Amazon was not easy. It took a lot of hard work and very smart teammates. And I’m finding – and Lauren’s finding – that philanthropy is very similar. It’s not easy. It’s really hard.”
As it stands, Bezons has declined to specify how much he would donate in total or what he wanted to go to. But, he has made pledges to9 donate 8% of his fortune over the next 10 years to the Bezos Earth Fund.