Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, has announced a $1 billion fund dedicated to COVID-19 relief operations via a series of tweets posted on his twitter handle. The money, which amounts to about 28% of his wealth, will be sourced from his Square equity and a tally of the beneficiaries and donations will be made available to the general public.
As to why he pulled the money from Square rather than Twitter, Dorsey added, “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.”
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
Once humanity is past the COVID-19 pandemic, the initiative will shift focus towards other burning issues like health and education for girls and a universal basic income structure, which Dorsey says “represent the best long-term solutions to the existential problems facing the world.”
The Start Small fund has already made its first donation, a $100,000 sum to America’s Food Fund, an initiative focused on providing meals to vulnerable populations disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, led by Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Laurene Powell Jobs.
Details regarding the working of the fund and how donations can be made are not clear yet. The story will be updated as soon as we get information regarding the same.
