Unlike his predecessor, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook is publicly committed to both corporate and personal philanthropy. One of the first things he did after being named CEO was start a matching gift program to encourage employees to donate to charitable causes. Within two months Apple and its employees had donated more than $1.3 million.
Since then, Apple employees have been praised for a culture of giving time and money to non-profit organizations near its headquarters in California, and Apple led a prominent fundraising campaign for (RED), a charity fighting HIV and AIDS worldwide.
Now it appears that Cook is going to sign The Giving Pledge, joining a growing list of rich people who have joined Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates in promising to give away the majority of their personal wealth.
A just-published profile of Cook in Fortune magazine says:
He plans to give away all his wealth, after providing for the college education of his 10-year-old nephew. There should be plenty left over to fund philanthropic projects. Cook’s net worth, based on his holdings of Apple stock, is currently about $120 million. He also holds restricted stock worth $665 million if it were to be fully vested. Cook says that he has already begun donating money quietly, but that he plans to take time to develop a systematic approach to philanthropy rather than simply writing checks.
Though he has less to give than some other heavy-hitting philanthropists in tech, Cook’s willingness to enlist Apple’s assets for the benefit of charitable causes adds heft to his personal commitment.