Tim Cook, the CEO of the most valuable company in the world, Apple, is to join the ranks of those extremely wealthy individuals who plan to give away all their wealth.
Fortune magazine quoted Apple’s boss as saying that he plans to donate his estimated $785 million fortune to charity, after he’s paid for his 10-year-old nephew’s college education.
Tim Cook to donate his wealth
“You want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripples for change,” Cook told Fortune.
The company estimated Cook’s worth based on his Apple stock, worth about $120 million currently. He does however also hold restricted stock worth $665 million if it was fully vested.
The 54-year-old CEO revealed the details in Fortune’s profile, and is an example of the world’s richest people increasingly become philanthropic with their fortunes.
Likewise, billionaire Warren Buffet is encouraging the extremely wealthy to give away half their worth through what’s called the “Giving Pledge”, on whose website are listed people like Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison.
Tim Cook’s wealth does not quite match the scale of Gates or Zuckerberg for example, both worth billions of dollars, but the Apple CEO says that he hopes he can make a difference. Cook is not listed on the website, but he is known as an extremely private person who tends to avoid the spotlight.
In more recent years, however, he has started to become more open about issues including the environment and civil rights. Cook told Fortune that he has already started donating money to various unspecified causes quietly, and is trying to develop a more ‘systematic approach’ to philanthropy that goes beyond just writing cheques.
SOURCE: Reuters
Larry Banks is a keen follower of technology and finance. He has worked for a variety of online publications, writing about a diverse range of topics including mobile networks, patents, and Internet video delivery technologies.
