Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter and founder of Square Inc., announced Tuesday he will transfer $1 billion in stock to fund global COVID-19 relief efforts.
Dorsey says the stock represents about 28 percent of his net worth.
“Why now?” Dorsey tweeted. “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.”
The St. Louis, Missouri, native is moving 19,833,400 shares of stock that are individually worth $50.31 to Start Small LLC, which will make grants to COVID-19-related relief efforts. Dorsey noted on Twitter that after “we disarm this pandemic, the focus will shift to girl’s health and education” as well as universal basic income, which he called a great idea that needs experimentation.
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 has also created a public tracking sheet to encourage transparency that will track all of the stock transfers and sales and the grants made by Start Small LLC. The first grantee to benefit from Dorsey’s donation is America’s Food Fund, which launched last week and provides “funding relief to organizations working to feed the country’s most vulnerable populations impacted by COVID-19.”
Dorsey tweeted that he is transferring his stock in Square and not Twitter because he owns much more stock in Square.
Square is a mobile payment company based in San Francisco.
