Jack Dorsey, cofounder and CEO of social network Twitter and mobile payments company Square, has announced on Tuesday that he will be donating a massive $1 billion toward coronavirus relief. Dorsey in a tweet thread said he’s moving $1 billion of his equity in Square, over a quarter of his total wealth to an LLC called Start Small. The charity fund will provide funding to global COVID-19 relief efforts, he said.
“After we disarm this pandemic, the focus will shift to girl’s health and education, and UBI,” Dorsey added. He also shared a sheet on Twitter that he said will keep track of the donations.
“Why now?” he wrote. “The needs are increasingly urgent, and I want to see the impact in my lifetime. I hope this inspires others to do something similar. Life is too short, so let’s do everything we can today to help people now.”
According to Recode, Jack’s donation is “the country’s most significant private gift to tackling the coronavirus and its consequences”. Among those who previously announced donations amid the coronavirus crisis is Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who recently said he’d commit $100 million to food banks. “Even in ordinary times, food insecurity in American households is an important problem, and unfortunately COVID-19 is amplifying that stress,” Bezos said.
The United States has recorded more than 380,000 coronavirus cases, with the total death toll rising to about 12,300.
