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Jeff Bezos pledges to give away the majority of his $124 billion fortune to charity

Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos. Dave J Hogan/Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images
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Jeff Bezos has pledged to give away the majority of his wealth.

In an interview with his girlfriend Lauren Sánchez, the Amazon founder told CNN that he planned to give away most of his estimated $124 billion fortune.

Bezos said he planned to dedicate the bulk of this fortune to fighting the climate crisis and supporting people who could unify humanity, per CNN.

He said that the hard part of giving the money away was "figuring out how to do it in a levered way." The couple were "building the capacity to be able to give away this money," he added.

"There are a bunch of ways that I think you could do ineffective things, too," he said. "So you have to think about it carefully and you have to have brilliant people on the team."

The statement is the first time Bezos has pledged to give away the majority of his wealth.

In the past, some have criticized the Amazon founder for not signing the Giving Pledge, a promise by some of the world's richest people to donate the majority of their wealth to charity. 

Bezos's ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, signed the Giving Pledge in 2019 and has since become one of the leading philanthropists in the US. As of March this year, Scott had given away a total of $12.5 billion.

Representatives for Bezos did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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Beatrice Nolan was a tech reporter on the business news team in the UK. She joined Insider in January 2022 as a fellow on Business Insider's careers desk. Beatrice covered tech and the future of work, with a focus on artificial intelligence. Some of her stories and early experiments with ChatGPT are widely cited. Beatrice has also discussed her work covering AI trends on panels and radio shows, including NPR.She was based in Business Insider's London office and graduated from the University of  York with a bachelor's degree in English.Featured Articles:Artists say AI image generators are copying their style to make thousands of new images — and it's completely out of their control.ChatGPT was a black swan eventFinland is the world's happiest country, but Finns say we're confusing happiness for something elseThe world is splitting between those who use ChatGPT to get better, smarter, richer — and everyone elseThis man used AI to write and illustrate a children's book in one weekend. He wasn't prepared for the backlash.ChatGPT has only been around for 2 months and is causing untold chaosTwo professors who say they caught students cheating on essays with ChatGPT explain why AI plagiarism can be hard to proveChatGPT wrote college application essays. Admissions professionals said they passed for essays written by students but wouldn't have a chance at any top colleges.College professors are considering creative ways to stop students from using AI to cheatChatGPT wrote my cover letters. Here's how recruiters responded.