Jeff Bezos has defended the way he spends his money by claiming he spends more on climate change than he does on space travel.
The Amazon founder recently earmarked $1 billion of Amazon stock a year to fund his Blue Origin space travel company.
Bezos made his claim when interviewed at the Ignatius Forum in Washington, D.C., where he was asked what he would say to critics who argued that billionaires should be spending more on the global climate crisis rather than things like space travel.
“They’re missing the duality that we need to do both and that the two things are deeply connected,” Bezos told Harvard Business Review editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius.
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“I’m actually spending even more money on the Bezos Earth Fund than I’m spending on space.”
Bezos did however acknowledge the threat of climate change and said that there was a “tremendous amount to be done” on Earth, but that in order to “keep growing as a civilisation,” humans need to look to developing resources on other planets as well.
The world’s second richest man launched the $10 billion Earth Fund in 2020 to issue grants to scientists activists and other organisations working to address the climate crisis that the planet faces.
The fund has granted $947 million so far, with plans to issue the remaining $9 billion by 2030.
Bezos reportedly has doubled his weekly commitment to Blue Origin since stepping down as Amazon chief executive earlier this year.
