WORLD OF BILLIONAIRES

… THE UPS AND DOWNS OF THE SUPER-RICH

The world’s second-richest person made the single-largest charitable contribution in 2020 – a $10 billion fund that is intended to help fight climate change, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list of top donations,

Amazon’s founder and chief executive, Jeff Bezos, whose “real-time” worth Forbes estimates at about $188bn, used the contribution to launch his Bezos Earth Fund. The fund, which supports non-profits involved in the climate crisis battle, has paid out $790 million to 16 groups so far, according to the Chronicle.

Setting aside Mr Bezos’s whopping gift, though, the sum total of the top 10 donations last year – $2.6bn – was the lowest since 2011. This came even as many billionaires vastly increased their wealth in the stock market rally that catapulted technology shares, in particular, last year.

Nike co-founder and chairman Phil Knight, who with his wife, Penny, made the second and third-largest donations last year according to the Chronicle, increased his wealth by about 77 per cent from March 18 up to December 7, 2020. Mr Knight and his wife gave more than $900m to the Knight Foundation and $300m to the University of Oregon.

Fred Kummer, founder of construction company HBE Corporation, and his wife, June, gave $300m to establish a foundation to support programmes at the Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, delivered the fourth-largest donation on the Chronicle’s list: a $250m gift to the Centre for Tech and Civic Life, which worked on voting security issues in the 2020 election.