Jack Dorsey moves more than $600 million of Square stock after his promise to donate $1 billion to coronavirus relief.

Jack Dorsey moves more than $600 million of Square stock after his promise to donate $1 billion to coronavirus relief.

Jack Dorsey COVID-19 Coronavirus

On April 7, Twitter and Square’s billionaire CEO Jack Dorsey publicly pledged in a tweet that he would transfer $1 billion worth of Square shares, or nearly a third of his net worth to an entity that would fund COVID-19 relief efforts and other philanthropic endeavors. New documents filed with the Securities Exchange Commission, made public on Tuesday afternoon, show Dorsey is moving forward with his plan.

 

The Twitter and Square cofounder — who is worth an estimated $3.9 billion, according to Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List — transferred over 12 million shares of his equity in Square, worth $609 million, to a limited liability company called Start Small LLC on April 6, the day before he announced his pledge, the filings show.

Dorsey has taken an extra step, creating a public Google sheet where he says he will document and share with people exactly where the money in Start Small LLC is going. As of Tuesday afternoon, Start Small LLC has distributed $5.1 million to four different COVID-19 relief efforts, including $2.1 million to Mayor’s Fund LA, for domestic violence victims in L.A.

The LLC structure of Start Small has been used by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, as well as by Laurene Powell Jobs and a few other billionaire philanthropists. By choosing to create an LLC instead of a charitable foundation, it allows these wealthy individuals to give without much oversight or public accountability.

Dorsey tweeted last week that once the coronavirus pandemic was over, Start Small LLC would shift to funding women’s health and education and universal basic income. A representative for Square could not be reached for comment.

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