The joy of giving: Jeff Bezos gives $684 mn of Amazon stock to nonprofits

By Sophie Alexander

Jeff Bezos gave $684 million of Amazon.com Inc. stock to non-profits, days after posting on Instagram that he’d chosen 16 organizations to be the first recipients of money from the Bezos Earth Fund.
The world’s richest man donated 220,825 shares of the e-commerce juggernaut, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Amazon founder has given away stock worth $856 million this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which estimates his fortune at $183.6 billion.

Bezos announced the Earth Fund in February as a $10 billion endeavor to combat climate change. On Monday he named the first recipients getting $791 million in donations, including the Environmental Defense Fund and the World Wildlife Fund. The billionaire had been criticized for a paltry philanthropic record before ramping up his contributions in recent years.

Bezos has been on an Amazon selling spree this year. Earlier this month, he sold $3 billion of Amazon stock, the latest in a series of transactions that now exceed $10 billion this year.