American entrepreneur and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose worth is estimated at roughly $124.1 billion, announced on Monday with CNN that he would give away most of his fortune to charities that fight against climate change.
The announcement comes after Bezos awarded $100 million to singer and philanthropist Dolly Parton as a gift.
“We’ve just announced a new Courage and Civility award recipient — Dolly Parton, who leads with her heart, and will put this $100 million award to great use helping so many people. She joins prior awardees, Van Jones and Chef Jose Andres. Congrats, Dolly!” Bezos wrote on his social media.
One of Parton’s current philanthropic endeavors is the Imagination Library, a program for promoting literacy that is getting very close to delivering its 200 million free books to young children across five nations.
“I try to put my money where my heart is. I will do my best to do good things with this money. Thank you, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez,” Dolly Parton said.
Watch the video:
We’ve just announced a new Courage and Civility award recipient — @DollyParton, who leads with her heart, and will put this $100 million award to great use helping so many people. She joins prior awardees, @VanJones68 and @Chefjoseandres. Congrats, Dolly! pic.twitter.com/dzTuoGVp3G
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) November 12, 2022
On Monday, CNN aired an interview with Mr. Bezos and his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, in which they discussed their plans “to be able to give away this money” and their decision to award Dolly Parton.
Chloe Melas: Talk to me about choosing Dolly Parton?
Jeff Bezos: Well, look at what she’s done and how she’s led her life and the way she’s done it. These bold things are always with civility and kindness. She’s a unifier. You know, we have big problems in the world, and the way to get big problems done is you have to work together. We have too many examples, examples in the world of conflict and people using ad hominem attacks on social media and so and so on. You won’t find Dolly Parton doing that.
Chloe Melas: When you go and you look at your net worth it’s too much money to even spend in a lifetime. Do you plan to give away the majority of your wealth in your lifetime?
Jeff Bezos: Yes, I do. The hard part is figuring out how to do it in a levered way. It’s not easy. Building Amazon was not easy. It took a lot of hard work, and a bunch of very smart teammates. And I’m finding, and I think Laurens finds the same thing that philanthropy is very similar. It’s not easy. It’s really hard. And there are a bunch of ways that you I think that you could do ineffective things too. So we’re building the capacity to be able to give away this money.
Watch the video:
Exclusive: Jeff Bezos tells CNN that he’ll give away the majority of his $124 billion net worth during his lifetime, the first time he’s made such a promise. https://t.co/br4nQKVR3n pic.twitter.com/puR4MFOAAo
— CNN International (@cnni) November 14, 2022
