Bezos makes pair of 9-figure donations

Former President Barack Obama’s foundation announced Monday that it has received a $100 million donation from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, which it says is the largest individual contribution it has received to date.

Separately on Monday, New York University’s medical center said it has received a $166 million gift from Bezos and his family.

For its part, the Obama foundation said in a statement that the gift from Bezos is intended “to help expand the scope of programming that reaches emerging leaders” in the United States and around the world.

The donation, it said, was also given in honor of John Lewis, the congressman and civil rights icon who died last year.

As part of the gift, the foundation said Bezos has asked for the plaza at the Obama Presidential Center, under construction in Chicago’s South Side, to be named after Lewis. Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to Obama who serves as the foundation’s CEO, said in a statement that the foundation was “thrilled” by that idea.

Construction on Obama’s legacy project is expected to cost about $830 million and to be completed by 2025. NYU said in a statement the donation will be used to aid “with the health and wellness of diverse populations” across NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn community, one of the school’s teaching hospitals and trauma centers in Brooklyn.

Last year, Bezos committed to spend $10 billion by 2030 to enhance climate change efforts through his Bezos Earth Fund. In recent months, he has released some details on how he plans to spend that money.