Jeff Bezos slammed for donating just $690,000 to Australian bushfire relief despite net worth of $110 billion
Over the weekend Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that he will be donating around 690,000 USD toward the Australian bushfire relief - a charity amount that many thought was pretty meager for a person with an estimated net worth of more than $110 billion.
“Our hearts go out to all Australians as they cope with these devastating bushfires,” Bezos wrote on his Instagram account. “Amazon is donating 1 million AU dollars in needed provisions and services.”
However, the charitable effort of the richest man on earth was slammed by a number of social media users, on both Instagram and Twitter, where the news was later shared by many people. "I don't know how much has been raised total for Australia, but let's go over-the-top and assume $10 billion has been raised worldwide (which is way, way more than the probable figure). If Jeff Bezos personally matched this, he would still have $100 billion. Think about that," one user tweeted.
Similarly, an Instagram user wrote: "There are other celebrities who have DONATED more than you. 634k is literally s**t to you. As the richest man in the world your philanthropy has been at minimum compared to the rest. S**t even compared to JK Rowling you seriously fall behind."
Many celebrities have stepped up in the past couple of months to help out in the wildfire crisis that has burnt more than 12 million acres of land and claimed the lives of over a billion wild animals, with many donating more than Bezos, with just a fraction of the wealth that he possesses.
To start with, Leonardo DiCaprio, whose net worth is $260 million, pledged $3 million. Chris Hemsworth, Kylie Jenner and Elton John all pledged $1 million, and others including Pink, Bette Midler, Nick Cave, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, and Kylie Minogue’s family, all donated $500,000 to the cause. One Instagram model also claimed that she’s raised more than $1 million by offering nude photos in exchange for donations.
A number of users on Instagram also believed that Bezos' donation was targetted at getting a tax write-off.
"You all act like he’s doing this out of the kindness of his heart open your eyes holy s**t. Jeff isn’t donating this money, Amazon is. And guess who gets a huge tax write off because of this?? They do. Doesn’t bother you that a TRILLION dollar company is only donating $690k USD? Doesn’t bother you that a TRILLION dollar company paid $0.00 in taxes? Stop treating the worlds most selfish man like he’s a god," one of them wrote.
However, not everyone was prepared to hold a dagger at the billionaire's throat for his philanthropic efforts. "He is a person not an atm...that is still a lot of money! These people crazy! Poor Jeff I love you dawg!" one supporter wrote.