Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter and the Square payment platform, has announced that he is donating $1 billion to COVID-19 response and relief efforts.
The financial commitment, which represents a whopping 28% of Dorsey’s net worth, will reportedly be funded by the tech entrepreneur’s Square shares.
Dorsey wrote in a Twitter post that he now plans on selling his Square equity since he currently owns more shares in Square than Twitter, and he hopes to reduce the impact of the donation by selling them over an extended period of time.
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As the funds are distributed to various relief efforts through the Start Small Foundation, Dorsey plans to offer full transparency of his donations by tracking them through a public Google document.
“I’m moving $1B of my Square equity (~28% of my wealth) to [Start Small] LLC to fund global COVID-19 relief. After we disarm this pandemic, the focus will shift to girl’s health and education, and UBI,” wrote Dorsey.
“Why pull just from Square and not Twitter? Simply: I own a lot more Square. And I’ll need to pace the sales over some time. The impact this money will have should benefit both companies over the long-term because it’s helping the people we want to serve,” he continued.
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“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.”
In addition to Dorsey’s donation being one of the most impressive contributions towards novel coronavirus relief efforts to date, Deadline reports that it may be the largest private donation to a global cause since CNN founder Ted Turner committed $1 billion towards the creation of the United Nations Foundation in 1997.
This is just one of many positive stories and updates that are coming out of the COVID-19 news coverage this week. For more uplifting coverage on the outbreaks, click here.
Why UBI and girl’s health and education? I believe they represent the best long-term solutions to the existential problems facing the world. UBI is a great idea needing experimentation. Girl’s health and education is critical to balance: https://t.co/dC3dU6hvxB
— jack (@jack) April 7, 2020
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
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I’m sure he can scrape by with the remaining $2 billion +. By spreading the sale out and the donations through a charity, he’ll also reduce whatever tax burden he has left. Kudos for choosing Covid-19 and girls health and education over political donations.