Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter and Square, said Tuesday that he is devoting $1 billion of his stake in the mobile payments company, or 28 percent of his net worth, to help fund coronavirus relief efforts.
“I’m moving $1B of my Square equity (~28% of my wealth) to #startsmall LLC to fund global COVID-19 relief,” Dorsey tweeted.
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Dorsey’s investment in coronavirus relief is the most significant financial pledge by a private individual to date. Several other current and former tech executives, including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, have each pledged $100 million.
Unlike other donors, Dorsey also promised to keep a consistently updated public record of all the donations.
Once the pandemic is over, Dorsey said, the rest of the $1 billion will be dedicated to “girl’s health and education, and UBI,” which is short for Universal Basic Income, a program that calls for each person to receive a certain amount of money from the government every month.
“Why UBI and girl’s health and education? I believe they represent the best long-term solutions to the existential problems facing the world,” he wrote.
Dorsey said he was pulling money from Square and not Twitter for a simple reason: “I own a lot more Square. And I’ll need to pace the sales over some time.”
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As for why he’s making this investment now: “The needs are increasingly urgent,” Dorsey wrote, “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.”
