Coronavirus Outbreak: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey pledges $1 billion towards COVID 19 relief efforts

Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has pledged $1 billion of his stake in his digital payment group Square Inc to help fund coronavirus relief efforts. In a series of tweets, Dorsey said that the pledged amount represents about 28 percent of his overall wealth. The money will be donated to his charity fund, Start Small LLC. Other than tackling the coronavirus pandemic, the fund will focus on health and education for girls and “universal basic income” efforts, once the outbreak is over. [caption id=“attachment_4977141” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  Jack Dorsey, CEO and co-founder of Twitter. Image: Reuters[/caption] “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,” Dorsey said.

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

He said all transfers, sales and grants will be made public in a tracking sheet. “Why is #startsmall a LLC? This segments and dedicates my shares to these causes, and provides flexibility,” Dorsey said. The Twitter co-founder shared a document link that shows the new fund had already pledged $100,000 to America’s Food Fund, an initiative launched by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, and Laurene Powell Jobs, the wife of Steve Jobs. Dorsey, whose net worth, according to Forbes is estimated at $3.3 billion, said he was pledging his stake in Square instead of Twitter because he owns a lot more in the former company. COVID–19 has so far claimed more than 82,000 lives and infected over 14 lakh people across the globe. The US has recorded over four lakh coronavirus cases, and close to 13,000 people have died of the virus in the country.