Jeff Bezos Gives $100 Million to José Andrés and World Central Kitchen

On Tuesday, following a 10-minute trip to the edge of suborbital space on his privately-funded rocket ship, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced that he’s bestowing the “Courage and Civility Award” to chef José Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen, and Van Jones, CNN political commentator and founder of DreamCorps. The new prize “recognize[s] leaders who aim high, and who pursue solutions with courage and who always do so with civility.” Each awardee gets $100 million to disperse to charities of their choosing.

World Central Kitchen is Andrés’s enormous charity project that is devoted to feeding people during times of disaster. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the WCK really kicked into high gear and has been responsible for getting meals to people all over the world.

In a statement, Andrés said:

I’m so honored. I’m really grateful for this award, and the incredible support from Jeff and the entire Bezos family. World Central Kitchen was born from the simple idea that food has the power to create a better world. A plate of food is a plate of hope … it’s the fastest way to rebuild lives and communities.

This award itself cannot feed the world on its own. But this is the start of a new chapter for us — it will allow us to think beyond the next hurricane to the bigger challenges we face. People of the world: now is the time to think really big, to solve hunger with the fierce urgency of now.

The thing we want to do is revolutionize disaster and hunger relief. People don’t want our pity, they want our respect … the least we can do is be next to them when things get tough…

A $200 million donation is amazing, and World Central Kitchen will most certainly put their $100M to great use. But, to put it into perspective, Bezos has $205 billion in net worth, so not considering tax write-offs, both of the donations together make up .08 percent of Bezos’s income.  And one passenger on Blue Origin paid $28M for a seat.

The announcement of the new award comes at a time when Bezos is facing a lot of criticism, in part due to his expensive space trip, but also because of the purported treatment of Amazon employees, especially Amazon drivers and warehouse workers. Amazon is also known for its history of union-busting, as well as its leaked campaigns to smear workers who speak out against the company.

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