Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sánchez have given away $100 million to a retired Navy admiral and actress Eva Longoria as part of the billionaire’s annual prize to individuals who make significant contributions to society.
The Desperate Housewives star and Bill McRaven, a veteran and former chancellor of the University of Texas System have been awarded $50 million each to help those in need.
Bezos—who has a net worth of around $200 billion—launched the Courage and Civility Award in 2021 to support philanthropists.
Jeff Bezos just gave $100 million to actress Eva Longoria and the retired admiral who oversaw the capture of Osama bin Laden to use as they see fit
Orianna Rosa Royle
Fri, March 15, 2024 at 12:10 PM GMT·3 min read
Courtesy of the Bezos Courage and Civility Awards
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sánchez have given away $100 million to a retired Navy admiral and actress Eva Longoria as part of the billionaire’s annual prize to individuals who make significant contributions to society.
The Desperate Housewives star and Bill McRaven, a veteran and former chancellor of the University of Texas System have been awarded $50 million each to help those in need.
Bezos—who has a net worth of around $200 billion—launched the Courage and Civility Award in 2021 to support philanthropists.
Van Jones, a lawyer and CNN commentator, and the lauded chef and humanitarian José Andrés were the first recipients of the prize.
“We need unifiers and not vilifiers,” Bezos commented on the reason for launching the award, before revealing the inaugural prize winners.
“People who argue hard and act hard for what they truly believe, but always with civility and never ad hominem attacks. And unfortunately, we live in a world where this is too often not the case.”
Since then, country singing icon Dolly Parton took home the 2022 award, after donating $1 million toward Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine research and books to millions of children through her foundation Imagination Library.