Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

Presumably the minor coal energy companies would quickly become new major companies in the vaccuum left behind.

I also would push back on the idea that this is a "goodwill move". He dumped $2b in homelessness issues and it did nothing to move the needle on his likability. If anything it seemed to give him a lot of bad press and coverage. It seems more likely that he is either a) thinking about his long term legacy (a la Bill Gates), or b) he may (gasp) actually care about this issue.

Because all dissenting opinions are trolls? I genuinely dislike being preached to about climate change by mega-consumers like celebrities.

We don't know the structure of "The Earth Fund" so here are some possibilities:

if its an actual fund then it can make more investments, no immediate tax consequences, but any long term capital losses, because nobody has a sustainability solution that makes any money, will serve to offset any taxes that he would have to pay on the long term capital gains of his Amazon stock sales.

if its another charitable foundation, then the whole $10B will offset up to 50% of his whole tax bill any year, rolling forward till there is no more to deduct. not just limited to any particular type of capital tax. he can also just donate his amazon shares without selling them first, gaining a charitable deduction on the entire value and no capital gains tax event, but depending on the type of charitable foundation the donation could be limited to his cost basis, instead of the current fair market value, another consequence being that a lower % max deduction is possible. Actually this could be genius because his cost basis might have become pegged to the fair market value in the divorce. The IRS allows divorcing couples to keep their original cost basis on split property but could be optional, given the nature of their settlement where it seems there were modifications onto what the stock contract actually is - with some shares transferred but voting rights retained.

So for example, there is almost no scenario where Jeff Bezos has to pay any taxes on the $4Billion in Amazon shares he sold earlier this year. Whether he converts another $10B shares to cash or not.

So even though he 'spends' on a cause and theoretically doesn't get to use that money for himself, even though its not paying the government either, he doesn't actually lose any money he ever actually had.

It's nice that a transaction towards this cause is occurring.

Then, buy the biggest coal mining companies and shut them down (or convert to renewables).

In 2016, Australia was the world's biggest net coal exporter[1] with 32% of global exports and the fourth highest producer. As far as I know, all coal mining in Australia is undertaken by private companies who hold a mining lease.

The $10billion could be used to buy controlling interests in some of the 10 biggest listed coal mining companies in Australia[2] and stop mining.

What I don't know is if the Australian Government can withdraw a coal mining lease if it's not being used (then just reduce production to miniscule levels) or what the impact would be when the lease expires. Still, I'd suggest such a move would have a crippling near term impact on the coal mining industry, which might be enough to kick renewables along further to fill the gap.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia#Production,_...

[2] https://top10companiesinaustralia.com/top-10-listed-coal-com...