In an article in the Washington Post about the extreme wealth billionaires have gained during the COVID-19 pandemic, Tompkins-Stange, notes that tech billionaires invested comparatively little of that increased wealth back into the public sphere for the pandemic. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos donated $150 million, or roughly 0.26 percent of the profits he accrued during the pandemic, to COVID-related causes, “while also having his workers work in Dickensian conditions,” she said.
As an example for a more promising type of tech billionaire to emerge from the pandemic, Tompkins-Stange pointed to Bezos’s ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, and Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey. They also saw their wealth balloon during the pandemic and responded by giving away massive amounts as unrestricted funds to those in need, rather than moonshot investments aimed at reshaping the future.
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