It’s Tuesday, February 18, and Jeff Bezos is opening up his wallet to fight climate change.
Jeff Bezos, supreme leader of Amazon and the richest human being on earth, took to Instagram on Monday to tell the world he will donate $10 billion to fight climate change.
In his post, Bezos acknowledged that “climate change is the biggest threat to our planet” and said that his new global initiative, the Bezos Earth Fund, will finance “scientists, activists, and NGOs — any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.” Bezos said he will begin issuing grants this summer, but no further information on the commitment has been released.
Bezos’s $10 billion fund represents about 8 percent of his net worth of $130 billion. It’s also more than 13 times as much as Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire presidential candidate, has spent tackling climate change through his Beyond Coal, Beyond Carbon, and American Cities Climate Challenge programs.
Amazon has come under fire in recent months for threatening to fire employees who publicly criticize the company’s climate policies. On Monday, the group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice commended Bezos but suggested his commitment was hypocritical, since his company still contracts with oil and gas producers and funds climate-denying think tanks.
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