MacKenzie Scott, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos's ex-spouse, says that she has given $1.7bn (£1.3bn) to charity up to now.
She has made donations to historically black US faculties, climate alternate corporations and health corporations.
Ms Scott posted about the gifts on social media, also saying that she has changed her surname from Bezos.
She is the 2d-richest girl on this planet, with a fortune of greater than $62bn, according to Forbes.
She and Mr Bezos divorced closing year.
The novelist, who married Mr Bezos a yr before he situated Amazon and became one of the crucial enterprise's first personnel, got a 4% stake after the cut up.
presently after announcing the divorce, Ms Scott signed the Giving Pledge, joining a crusade headquartered via billionaire investor Warren Buffett and ex-Microsoft boss bill Gates and his spouse Melinda. It commits the wealthy to give away the majority of their fortunes to charity.
Ms Scott stated she had "watched the primary half of 2020 with a mixture of heartbreak and horror" and turned into offering a replace on the donations to attract attention to the explanations all the way through the coronavirus pandemic.
"my very own reflection after fresh pursuits revealed a dividend of privilege i would been overlooking: the attention i will be able to call to agencies and leaders using exchange," she wrote in a blog post on Medium.
Tech listening toMs Scott's announcement comes the day before Mr Bezos is scheduled to testify earlier than US lawmakers in Washington. The listening to is part of a much wider investigation into the power held by using tech giants, together with Amazon, Google and facebook.
Amazon in particular has been beneath fireplace in fresh months, together with from its personal body of workers, over its environmental record and coronavirus defense measures. The on-line massive has faced calls to be broken up, including from Tesla boss Elon Musk.
Mr Bezos, the richest man on this planet, has additionally been subject to own criticism for now not making a gift greater of his wealth.
In 2018, he dependent a charitable fund with a beginning pledge of $2bn. This yr, he committed $10bn to combat local weather alternate and $100m to starvation relief fund, Feeding the united states.
He has now not joined the Giving Pledge. in addition to Ms Scott, other signatories consist of facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and spouse Priscilla Chan, Elon Musk and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and spouse Pam.
Ms Scott spoke of she had given greater than $586,000,000 to racial justice businesses and $399,500,000 to companies geared toward advancing economic mobility. different reasons covered gender equality, global construction and LGBTQ equality.
The list of companies includes these linked to former US presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush, the labour advocacy neighborhood One reasonable Wage, and other non-earnings corresponding to Black ladies Who Code.
The $20m gift to Tuskegee university, a traditionally black faculty, is the greatest within the college's heritage, president Lily McNair talked about.
"there is no doubt in my mind that any one's very own wealth is the fabricated from a collective effort, and of social structures which existing opportunities to a couple people, and boundaries to numerous others," Ms Scott wrote in a weblog submit on Medium.
The groups "offer an opportunity to make investments our good fortune in trade, no rely what form our good fortune has taken", she introduced.
Ms Scott's method differs from that of many different excessive-profile billionaires, mentioned Brian Mittendorf, a professor at Ohio State institution, who researches charity price range.
He referred to bulletins are often built up in boost, with new establishments that will also be sluggish responsible for distributing money.
"If the intention of doing this become to generate publicity, you should not have done it the style she did," he pointed out. "If the goal turned into to generate impact... this appears like an attractive respectable means of doing it."
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The donations come at a time of need as many charities are seeing a spike renowned because of the pandemic as gifts from smaller donors are declining, Prof. Mittendorf referred to.
The listing of recipients suggests Ms Scott is attempting to handle root causes of inequality and racial injustice - priorities which are "more usual" of female than male donors, stated Una Osili, a professor of economics and philanthropic reviews at Indiana tuition's Lily college of Philanthropy.
the effort to advertise a diverse community of businesses - both large and small, led by way of individuals of colour and girls, also stands out, she said.
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