The Twitter co-founder will be contributing $1 billion to address the coronavirus pandemic. The move comes after the virus devasted regions across the world causing the collapse of economies and laying off of workers.
Twitter co-founder and the chief executive of the company, Jack Dorsey, has pledged a donation of $1 billion for coronavirus relief. Dorsey made the announcement on Twitter on Tuesday, April 7th where he stated the funds will be used for charitable causes.
The Twitter co-founder pledge
Dorsey, through his twitter account, said the funds will be used for girls’ health education during this period. He also indicated that the funds will also go into a universal basic income and promised that the charitable efforts will be transparent. According to Dorsey, these fundings will help to disarm the scourge of the virus which has devastated the US and other countries globally.
I’m moving $1B of my Square equity (~28% of my wealth) to #startsmall LLC to fund global COVID-19 relief. After we disarm this pandemic, the focus will shift to girl’s health and education, and UBI. It will operate transparently, all flows tracked here: https://t.co/hVkUczDQmz
— jack (@jack) April 7, 2020
The billion-dollar contributions will come from his other company, Square, where he plans to sell stake in order to fund the fight against coronavirus. This will be about 28 percent of Dorsey’s net worth, which Forbes estimates to be about $3.3 billion.
He said the reason he decided to pull the funds from Square, rather than twitter was that he had more shares and control over Square. It was therefore realistic to use funds tied with Square, a digital payment company he owns.
Motivation for charity
He also explained the reason he decided to took the step right now was because he wanted to inspire others like him to contribute to the cause. He also said the devasting effects of the coronavirus and action was needed. He highlighted that life was too short and called on everyone to do everything they can to help those in need during this pandemic.
Why now? 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. ✌?
— jack (@jack) April 7, 2020
His emphasis on transparency, he argued was to help people realize where the funds will be spent. Until now, Dorsey kept his charitable work private but he stated in the tweet that going forward, he would ensure that all his donations were public. He said this might inspire others to contribute to similar charitable causes.
Other contributors
Other billionaires who have donated into charities during this pandemic are Bill Gates with $125 million in research, Jeff Bezos with a contribution of $100 million in food relief funds and Mark Zuckerberg who donated $25 million which went to research through Bills and Melinda Foundation.
