Jeff Bezos' donation to help the relief efforts in Australia was likely made with good intentions. However, the relatively small amount his multi-billion dollar company plans to donate has managed to irk a number of online critics.
The founder of US retail giant Amazon announced that his company would be donating $690,000 to help in Australia's bushfire relief efforts. Bezos made the announcement through an Instagram post on Sunday, stating that Amazon would be donating 1 million Australian dollars to help provide goods and services to victims.
Online users, with some comparing the sum to Bezos' current net worth, immediately ridiculed the amount of money pledged by the company. One user remarked that Bezos currently earns an average of $149,340 per minute, which means that the billionaire is effectively just donating 4.6 minutes of his time. The same user exclaimed that Bezos would have been better off donating what he makes in a day, which roughly translates to $215 million.
Another user on Twitter broke down Bezos's net worth, pointing out that the Amazon founder is currently worth around $116 billion. This meant that his company's donation of $690,000 would be approximately just 0.00059 percent of his entire fortune. In comparison, the user pointed out that this will be likes if someone had $50,000 and donated $30 to the relief effort and won headlines for the donation.
To be exact, Bezos's current net worth according to Forbes is around $116.7 billion. Analysts from Business Insider estimated that the billionaire earned around $9 billion per hour... in 2018. The estimates were based on the number of Amazon shares Bezos' owns, Amazon stock value, and its performance. As of today, Amazon has a market capitalization of more than $930 billion.
Apart from comparing his donation to his own net worth, Bezos's contribution was also compared to the donations from other high-profile personalities. This included massive donations from celebrities who had far less personal wealth than Bezos. Movie star Chris Hemsworth, who has a net worth of around $76 million, donated $500,000 to the relief effort. Singer and songwriter Pink and heavy metal band Metallica also donated the same amount. Meanwhile, online personality Kylie Jenner donated $1 million to help in the relief effort.
Fellow billionaires and heads of US tech giants, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook, have also made pledged to support relief efforts. Unlike Bezos, both Pichai and Cook have not disclosed the amount pledged by their companies.
