Scrooge.

Just a reminder, these donations go to his own charities as a tax deduction.

If the charity itself is doing proper work, that makes sense tbh. I mean, if you had billions to donate, would you give it to some random ass organisation... Or set up your own thing to do things that you personally agree with?
- If the charity itself is doing proper work
  I would be utterly shocked if it was.
- Agreed, and I’m find with the tax deduction if the charity works they do is legit, it’s not like he is paying taxes anyway.
- Honestly, I’d go for the middle option: donate to existing charities that appeal to me. I don’t want to run a charity, it sounds like a massive headache.
- i would definitely do the latter but that is not whats happening here
Because of course they do. Thanks for the additional info!
And there it is...
Also irs

I'm so fucking sick of all these billionaires "pledging" their fortunes. "I promise to donate all my wealth when I die" then fucking do it you cowards, die already.

They donate their wealth to avoid taxes. Basically their families control the foundations, they donate and avoid a whole shit ton of taxes their next of kin get the money from the foundation.
Adam Conover did a video on it.
- They give away all their money so they don't have to give away some of their money. Then they commit crimes so their kids can... have the money they gave away to not give away.
  What a take lol
Let's not forget, that while they "pLeDgE", they are also literally fucking their workers at the same time and expect that it all cancels out...
- Yeah, i pledge to fix all that shit i fucked up...
Was just gonna say its always some vague cause instead of an actual concrete thing they're donating to.

This is the same thing that other billionaire did with his fortune. Gave 3 billion "away" to his own charity so his kids could inherit without paying a penny in taxes.

I make under 200k and the highest bracket I hit is 51% of my salary. Warren buffet has paid less than 10% taxes on his entire fortune. They're playing us, the new cool thing is just to say it's for the climate.

Bezos pledged 40 billion (maybe 20, can't remember) I believe in 2019.
To date he has actually donated less than $200 million of it IIRC to any climate-related funds.
It's just a bold face lie, not even taking his own charity scams into account.
Edit: also side rant: I have gotten a lot of wallstreetbets armchair investors in the past saying "b-b-but muh liquid vs assets, he would crash amazon stock."
Bezos has liquidated a minimum of $12 billion per year without even a slight blip in amazon stock. PLENTY to fulfil his pledge. People don't understand the scale of sold shares. The stock market is completely speculative bs. If he liquidated every stock of amazon in a short time after an anouncement like this, investors would absolutely speculate that it would recover, the price would lower for a week or so while every hedge fund in existence rushes to buy every single stock that they have and voila, it would magically recover within a month and bozo would not be a complete lying scumbag. It would probably cause him to be audited though which is every bilionaire's nightmare because they have all done such shady things and dodges so many taxes for so many years. At least if the IRS had any balls.
- FYI it's "bald-faced" lie

Taxes. He should pay taxes.

What good does that do when government bans books, defunds schools and persuades people to become parents against their will and then cares more about corps then citizens? and breathe
- Maybe the government wouldn't do those things if they weren't in the pocket of corporations. Corporations who buy politicians so to create tax loopholes so they don't have to pay taxes....

No. The government should take it from him as taxes that he avoided. So the people can decide how best to invest it instead of over egomaniac with a history is abusing his people.

To be honest, going all toward climate change seems better than what the government would use it for. That being said, he should definitely pay more taxes.
- Dude for sure is going to spin up his own charities with lofty mission statements that he “donates” to which exclusively pitch solutions that require a lot of investment in his for-profit endeavors.
  Don’t mistake money laundering for benevolence.
- You know he's not really giving it away, right? I bet my bottom dollar that his assets are being transferred to a fund he controls. Because the fund is categorised non-profit, it will receive max tax write-offs.
  His ex-wife on the other hand, has given away butt load of money to actual charities.
- Yeah if it actually goes towards climate change and "uniting humanity" that's way better than giving it to any government.
- Jeff bezos funds a study how to fight climate change. Study finds humanity needs to decrease their usage of energy drastically and stop consumerism as we are doing it right now. Jeff bezos: (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
The US government? LOL. How much of the taxes goes to fossil fuel and corn subsidies and to the military industrial complex?
- The majority of our taxes goes to social programs and healthcare. Military spending is insane, but we have to keep in mind that taxing billionaires will absolutely bring benefits to the common folks.
I agree in principle, but the government would take the money and allocate 99% of it to the military budget rather than do anything useful with it.
- No, the government generally has a plan and definite budget for their money, which includes social programs and infrastructure. You can debate about how good it is, but at least it's there.
  Giving money to a charity directly controlled by them (or their kids, or one of their billionaire friends) might just make that money disappear.

"Billionaire pledges" is the same vibe as "hopes and prayers" .

Except prayers have a higher chance of changing anything.

I'll believe that if his plan is to unify humanity under his rule.

I pledge to not post this comment...whoops, darn, oh well. I tried.

bezos is a cuntasaurus, I'll never forget when Shatner was trying to share his feelings about the genuine experience of going into space, and cuck-lord bezo not only interrupts shatner, he sullies the moment by acting like a sore winner

I've hated bozos since forever, but this right here was unforgivable. Shatner trying to give inspiration after a really being in space, after a lifetime of being an icon? You fucking listen

My first thought when seeing this picture!

lol, "Pledge" just means, I might do it, so you can write a nice fluff peace on me and then I just conveniently forget to "Pledge" x amount.

What that means is he will invest that much in energy related projects during the course of his life. He did this the last time as well. He is not giving his money away. We are just used to turd ass quality journalism.

Where is he donating all his money to, you may ask?The Human Fund!

Money For People.

Ah, philanthropy. When you really want to fuck shit up, while keeping a clean facade.

Someone make Gates explain all his trips to Eppstein's island already!

Billionaire promises to do the thing that people want billionaires to do and often say they are evil for not doing

People react by dragging him

????

Let's not start patting him on the back for promises he could very easily not keep.
- I hope he buys the Amazon Rainforest and names it the Amazon Amazon Rainforest, and I think there's a reasonable chance of it happening if it becomes a big social media thing.
  As a private owner of the land he can stop all deforestation, allow only scientists and other specialists in the land, and also make some sick branding opportunities.
  Let's push to get these promises out into action.
- Yeah, its an amber heard pledge
Man who has a history of forcing people to piss in bottles says he'll start being nice
Like yeah, let me know when he actually delivers on that
- So you really that is a policy penned by Bezos himself?
  If so, why was it not widespread?
Promises mean fuckall, lets see him do it first. Its a little hard to believe coming from him specifically, whatwith the peebottles and such.

Nah, it's a reference

Isn't this the guy who wants to abandon earth and build a stupid sphere thing in space?

You can kiss all the babies you want, you still eat the ones at home.

Fuck a pseudo Phil.

TOOK THE GHOSTS LONG ENOUGH

Can he donate like one billion to me first please?

So selfish, he should give me a million, and then give 15usd to literally every single person on the planet (including himself).
- So selfish
  I'm practicing for when I'm a billionaire after he gives me a billion dollars this Tuesday.
I'm so poor, even a million would help.
- Oh I think a million would dramatically change the lives of 99% of the people on the planet.
No, to me

Billionaire philanthropy is as old as robber barons, and has long been a tool of washing the blood off of the legacy of the immensely wealthy.

Cornelius Vanderbilt, often considered the first of the robber barons, built his fortune first with steamboats, using his money borrowed from his parents and vicious business tactics. He later became one of the wealthiest people ever by building a monopoly within the nascent US railroad industry link. He pioneered many of the tactics used by the wealthy to abuse the rest of society for their benefit. A notable instance is the 1877 railroad strike, which occurred in response to him cutting the wages of his rail workers by 20%. As should be utterly unsurprising, he blamed the economy being depressed and encouraged the workers to work harder to improve business. link The strikers were naturally faced by police, militia, and national guard opposition. Around 100 people were killed as a result.

Vanderbilt was not one for philanthropy, but later on life did make some donations to churches (at his wives' behest), as well as to what is now Vanderbilt university. It's not an accident that he is remembered as the most reviled of the robber barons, to us now, and during his day.

Andrew Carnegie really was the one who established the trend of the incredibly wealthy giving away money as a method to launder his abuses of his workers and smaller competitors. Carnegie wrote an essay "The Gospel of Wealth" which outlined his belief that it is the duty of the immensely wealthy to give their money away, famously writing "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced" link

However, when we focus on the libraries and schools Carnegie built, we lose sight of the abuses he committed. Andrew Carnegie built his steel empire by savagely undercutting his compittion. He achieved these prices by cutting wages aggressively, crushing unions and forcing workers to work long hours in incredibly unsafe conditions. The Homestead Strike occurred in 1892 in responses to back to back wage cuts. Violence broke out between steel workers and the private strike breaking firm, the Pinkertons, whom Carnegie hired. Seven workers and three Pinkertons were killed. Naturally, the National Guard was called in by Carnegie's underling Frick to finish the job. link

Two years later, in 1894, McClure's magazine published a piece by Hamlin Garland, which is fascinating and worth a read link. To quote Hamlin's guide:

"Yes, the men call this the death-trap... they wipe a man out here every little while... (death comes) all kinds of ways. Sometimes a chain breaks, and a ladle tips over, and the iron explodes--like that... Sometimes the slag falls on the workmen from that roadway up there. Of course, if everything is working all smooth and a man watches out, why, all right ! But you take it after they've been on duty twelve hours without sleep, and running like hell, everybody tired and loggy, and it's a different story".

Bezos, Gates, Buffet, and their ilk very much follow in this same tradition. They spend their lives abusing workers, and destroying the lives of rivals to amass unimaginable wealth, and use philanthropy in their later years to wash the dried blood off of their image. No amount of philanthropy justifies their actions. No human makes that amount of wealth without viciously abusing others.

He just got too much money. He can make all he cares about rich. Buy anything. And still have money left. After he is dead, then giving away to charity will be his legacy. He also get a lot of tax break for this. Now, think about much he is responsible for the climate change by having all these Amazon stores etc.

Someone isn't quite self-aware

It's as simple as his new wife wanted a foundation, just like his old wife had.

The optimistic take would be that he found a way to live a couple hundred years and is not stupid enough to ignore the fact that he'll suffer the consequences of climate change at that point

Well it's his money to do what he wants but I think he'd be better off investing it in some promising new business ventures