Top 5 Businessmen and Companies that Contributed the Most Against COVID-19
By Space Coast Daily // April 19, 2020
These were definitely not the richest billionaires who supported the battle. The rough times people are experiencing today is forcing them to show their real selves.
The more global changes there are, the better one can see the true personalities behind the usual public masks. Billionaires who are contributing, with their business or even personal funds, against COVID-19 are also not exceptions.
It’s quite interesting though, that those whose capitals are not so big are the ones ready to share relatively more than those who are many times richer.
1. An absolute leader among the greatest sponsors in the global arena, in terms of value of money contributed against COVID-19, is Jack Dorsey. The father (head) of Twitter donated almost a third of his personal capital, USD 1b, out of his USD 3.6b.
Dorsey hopes that this truly generous gesture will inspire other billionaires to follow his example and encourage them to support the fight against the global pandemic.
2. Surprisingly, the second place of honor belongs to Vladimir Potanin, a Russian businessman from a non-IT industry, who is a head of Nornickel, the world’s largest nickel and palladium mining and smelting company. Potanin is ranked by Forbes as 41st in global and 1st in Russia with his USD 19.7b capital. The Russian philanthropist, together with his company, invested overall about USD 140m. by distributing funds for modernization and medical supply purposes, as well as for social stability support and small businesses in the regions where Nornikel’s facilities are located.
3. The third place was shared by two companies. The first is the co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, along with his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the second is the head of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos. Both donated USD 100m each.
It’s fair to note that the contribution of Bill Gates is one of the most generous ones, considering his capital of USD 98b that places him 2nd on the Forbes list. Apparently, Jeff Bezos, being the richest man on the planet in 2020 with his capital of USD 113b, donated the same amount.
Furthermore, it’s easy to calculate that the ratio of donations versus an actual capital of these two businessmen are not equivalent to each other, especially Dorsey and Potanin.
4. The next donation is four times as small and belongs to Mark Zuckerberg, who decided to join the supporters with USD 25m. Generally speaking, the head of Facebook is on the prestigious 7th place among the richest people, according to Forbes, with a capital of USD 54.7b.
5. And the final fifth place goes to the man ranked to be the 17th richest person in the world, and number one in China, according to Forbes. Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba, whose capital was assessed to be USD 38.8b in November 2018, donated a relatively small amount of USD 14.5m.
As a matter of fact, Warren Buffet could be nominated for suggesting the most hilarious measure against the COVID-19. A legendary businessman, who’s ranked to be on the 4th place by Forbes with his USD 67.5b Capital, said that it’s worth drinking more Coke to avoid catching the new coronavirus.
Even though there is no news about Buffet donating anything for pandemic resistance, we can only guess that he supports the Bill & Melinda Foundation by being a trustee.
A peculiar list drawn in this article demonstrates that human generosity does not depend on the personal or business capital at all.
In fact, it’s evident that Dorsey and Potanin, who are far from being the richest men on the planet, turned out to be the most responding and socially responsible individuals.
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