page_title: Jeff Bezos
section_title: Philanthropy
hierarchical_section_title: Jeff Bezos / Philanthropy
caption_attribution_description: English: Recovered F-1 engine parts. Gas Generator and Heat Exchanger (top) from engine on Apollo 16 mission and Thrust Chamber (bottom) from #3 engine on Apollo 12.
context_page_description: Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American internet entrepreneur, industrialist, media proprietor, and investor. He is best known as the founder, CEO, and president of the multi-national technology company Amazon. The first centi-billionaire on the Forbes wealth index, Bezos has been the world's richest person since 2017 and was named the "richest man in modern history" after his net worth increased to $150 billion in July 2018. According to Forbes, Bezos is the first person in history to have a net worth exceeding $200 billion.
  Born in Albuquerque and raised in Houston and later Miami, Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. He worked on Wall Street in a variety of related fields from 1986 to early 1994. He founded Amazon in late 1994 on a cross-country road trip from New York City to Seattle. The company began as an online bookstore and has since expanded to a wide variety of other e-commerce products and services, including video and audio streaming, cloud computing, and AI.
context_section_description: Bezos donated to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center several times between 2009 and 2017. In 2013, he pledged $500,000 to Worldreader, a non-profit founded by a former Amazon employee. 
  In September 2018, Business Insider reported that Bezos was the only one of the top five billionaires in the world who had not signed the Giving Pledge, an initiative created by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett that encourages wealthy people to give away a majority of their wealth. That same month, Janet Camarena, director of transparency initiatives at Foundation Center, was quoted by CNBC as having questions about Bezos’s new fund, including the fund's structure and how exactly it will be funded.
  In May 2017, Bezos gave $1 million to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which provides pro bono legal services for American journalists. On June 15, 2017, he posted a message on Twitter asking for ideas for philanthropy: "I'm thinking about a philanthropy strategy that is the opposite of how I mostly spend my time—working on the long term". At the time of the post, Bezos's lifetime spending on charitable causes was estimated to be $100 million. Multiple opinion columnists responded by asking Bezos to pay higher wages to Amazon warehouse workers. A year later in June, he tweeted that he would announce two philanthropic foci by the end of summer 2018. Bezos announced in September 2018 that he would commit approximately $2 billion to a fund to deal with American homelessness and establish a network of non-profit preschools for low income communities. As part of this announcement, he committed to establishing the "Day 1 Families Fund" to finance "night shelters and day care centers for homeless families" and the "Day 1 Academies Fund" for early childhood education.
  In January 2018, Bezos made a $33 million donation to TheDream.US, a college scholarship fund for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as minors. In June 2018, Bezos donated to Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a private philanthropic fund founded by Bill Gates aimed at promoting emissions-free energy. In September 2018, Bezos donated $10 million to With Honor, a nonpartisan organization that works to increase the number of veterans in political office.
  In February 2020, Bezos pledged $10 billion to combat climate change through the Bezos Earth Fund. Bezos also donated $100 million to food banks through Feeding America during the COVID-19 pandemic.
caption: Bezos funded the retrieval of these F-1 engine parts from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in 2015, eventually donating them to the Seattle Museum of Flight. They are from Apollo 16 (above) and Apollo 12 (below).
exif: {"Image Make": "Apple", "Image Model": "iPhone 7 Plus", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "10.3.2", "Image DateTime": "2017:06:18 15:01:02", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "210", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[47, 31, 457/100]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[122, 17, 1174/25]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "2806/315", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[22, 1, 93/50]", "GPS GPSSpeedRef": "K", "GPS GPSSpeed": "0", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "T", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "49012/177", "GPS GPSDestBearingRef": "T", "GPS GPSDestBearing": "49012/177", "GPS GPSDate": "2017:06:18", "GPS Tag 0x001F": "65", "Image GPSInfo": "1726", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2130", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10430", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/5", "EXIF FNumber": "9/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:06:18 15:01:02", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:06:18 15:01:02", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "2288/1011", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2159/1273", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "-1646/1239", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "399/100", "EXIF SubjectArea": "[2015, 1511, 2217, 1330]", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "531", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "531", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4032", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3024", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "28", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[399/100, 33/5, 9/5, 14/5]", "EXIF LensMake": "Apple", "EXIF LensModel": "iPhone 7 Plus back dual camera 3.99mm f/1.8"}