Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will donate $1 billion to COVID-19 relief and other charities

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CEO of both Twitter and Square, Jack Dorsey, is donating $1 billion of his equity in Square to fund COVID-19 relief around the world. Once the pandemic is over, the fund, which resides in his Start Small LLC, will shift focus to “girl’s health and education, and UBI.”

That puts almost a third of his wealth into the fund, which will be publicly tracked so all of its investments will be out in the open. That’s a power move for transparency in charitable giving, where usually donor-advised funds don’t have to disclose any of their outgoing cash.

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

Dorsey wants to see the impact of his cash in his lifetime, which to me reads like this won’t be the last time he divests stock to fuel philanthropic aims. He also hopes that this inspires others in similar positions of wealth to use their cash for the benefit of humanity.

He’s not alone in that sentiment, with other big tech moguls also throwing cash at the coronavirus problem. Bill Gates is spending billions through his foundation to find a vaccine for the virus. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame donated $25 million to the Center for Disease Control Foundation, and Jeff Bezos of Amazon is donating $100 million to food banks.

Glad to see Dorsey doing this? Should other tech founders be doing the same? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.