Hi John,

We’re pumped to share that after weeks of organizing… Jeff Bezos, former CEO of Amazon and 2nd richest man in the world, is publicly pledging to redistribute all of his wealth. By signing onto RG’s Giving Pledge, Bezos has agreed to move the entirety of his wealth out of his bank account and into poor and working class-led movements for social justice within the next decade.

“Look, I gave away the largest amount of money anyone has ever given away just last year and my overall wealth still grew -- Total wealth redistribution is a natural next step for me,” boasted Bezos. “Making this pledge is quite literally the least I can do after, along with the world’s billionaire class, I made around $70 billion during a pandemic….. Folks are right -- no one ‘earns’ a billion dollars.”

Bezos’ pledge to redistribute all his wealth and support poor and working-class led social movements is rare even among liberal philanthropists -- who, research shows, when giving money away commonly prioritize funding other wealthy institutions like universities and museums or organizations with wealthy white leadership -- not poor and working-class led movements fighting the root causes of wealth inequality.

“To be honest,” Bezos said, “The Black-led union organizing happening in Amazon in the South right now has helped me see that the billions I’ve made at Amazon don’t belong to me. I’m not rich because I’m an extra smart and worthy dude… Amazon’s profits come through exploitation of people and their labor, and specifically Black people -- the majority of the Amazon workforce. Some people might not believe this, but I’ve been in favor of wealth redistribution and Amazon unionizing all along; I view Amazon as more of a public good at this point, rather than something that should exist to extract profit for shareholders and company executives. The question for me was always whether we wanted to socialize the company or turn it over to the workers,” Bezos said. “In the end, I did feel comfortable with more of an anarcho-syndicalist approach.

“So yeah, we’ll be distributing ownership and decision-making power across Amazon’s 1M+ workforce. Of course, the challenge, just like signing RG’s Giving Pledge to give away all my wealth in 10 years, will be in working out all the details, something I think a company as brilliant as ours is well positioned to do.”

Bezos, the 2nd richest person in the world -- recently surpassed by Musk -- has given away as a percentage of his net wealth in his lifetime $1.4B or less than 1%???* of his total net wealth.

RG’s Giving Pledge is real though -- signing on means committing to support poor and working-class led social movements for the long-term. As part of a coordinated strategy to systemically redistribute wealth and repair the harm created by wealth extraction, RG asks our members to take bold action with the resources currently under our and our families’ control, moving toward greater alignment with humanity and the planet. RG asks people in the top 10% to develop plans to redistribute all or almost all inherited wealth and/or excess income to social justice movements led by poor and working-class people and communities of color.

Learn more and share: #GIVEAWAYMORETHANBEZOS. It’s not hard :)

Happy April Fool’s Day!

The RG Team

*https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-bezos-scott-philanthropy/