With the Trump administration waging a scorched-earth campaign on the U.S. government, many in the philanthropic sector are looking for first signs of how billionaire donors will respond. Last week, those eyes turned to Jeff Bezos.
News broke last Wednesday that the Amazon founder’s Bezos Earth Fund will discontinue support of the world’s top voluntary climate standards body, Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Two people told the Financial Times, the first outlet to report the news, that “they believed” the move was “partly down to Bezos not wanting to annoy Trump.”
For many observers, that signaled the 61-year-old centibillionaire was changing course to win the favor of President Trump, who has targeted international nonprofits like SBTi, which develops the standards companies like Sony and H&M follow to reduce their emissions. Concern is growing that other mega-funders may halt similar funding.
Such a shift would be deeply concerning for the climate sector, whose growth in recent years has been largely driven by new billionaire donors, many from the tech sector. The Bezos Earth Fund itself has yet to award about three-quarters of the $10 billion Jeff Bezos originally pledged for it.
Yet the Bezos Earth Fund claims that the Financial Times basically has the story all wrong.
“We were surprised because the story does not reflect the reality of the information we provided,” said a spokesperson in a statement. “SBTi has not requested new funding from the Earth Fund. As a result, the Earth Fund has made no decision with regard to further funding.” A source familiar with the relationship told IP that the organization did not reapply for funding before the grant came to an end.
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A cynic might very well question if that’s what really went down. Why wouldn’t a longtime grantee seek to continue a funding relationship with a major backer — particularly when that backer is a centibillionaire who has promised to spend billions more on climate by 2030? After all, the Bezos Earth Fund was one of SBTi’s top two supporters, along with the IKEA Foundation, which together accounted for nearly two-thirds of its funding, according to the organization’s website. (Service fees accounted for another third, with a minor share of support coming from Laudes Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies and Climate Arc.)
The end of the Earth Fund’s relationship with SBTi also comes amid what appears to be Jeff Bezos’ full-blown courtship of Trump. He blocked the Washington Post, which he owns, from printing an editorial in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris on the eve of the election. Amazon paid $40 million for the rights to a documentary and limited series about First Lady Melania Trump. And the 61-year-old attended — and donated to — the presidential inauguration last month.
Looking closer, though, there have been signs of growing tension in the funding relationship. A string of stories in publications like Bloomberg News and The Guardian last year suggested the Bezos Earth Fund had pressured SBTi into relaxing its carbon offset standards. (The Earth Fund has said it was not involved in those decisions.) Amazon was also dropped by SBTi in 2023 after failing to set a credible target for reducing its carbon emissions.
SBTi may have decided to end, at least for now, its relationship with one of its largest funders for the sake of its own credibility after a period of considerable controversy. Last April, a month after a London meeting with the Bezos Earth Fund, the group’s board unexpectedly announced plans to allow companies to meet climate targets with carbon offsets. The news prompted a revolt by staff, who called for the CEO to resign (he later stepped down) and for the plan to be scrapped (a final decision will be made later this year). Sources told the Financial Times that SBTi was already seeking to diversify its support out of concern for external perceptions about the Bezos Earth Fund’s influence over its work.
“We are developing a diversified funding base going forward that relies on donor funding as well as income generated through validation services,” said an SBTi spokesperson in a statement to IP. The original grant had “expired in 2024 as originally agreed,” the spokesperson added.
The grant timeline also belies the idea this was a recent decision. The fund awarded the three-year, $18 million grant in 2021, and the last payment came in November 2023, with the grant expiring in 2024, according to the source familiar with the relationship. If there had been discussion of a renewal, it would almost certainly have started well before the election.
Moving on after multi-year grants is a pattern at the Bezos Earth Fund that predates the election. The philanthropy did not renew a trio of three-year, $43 million grants made in 2021 to climate justice intermediaries — or many of the other mega-awards that were part of a $791 million package of grants made in 2021 when it kicked off operations.
This whole flap follows a busy stretch for the Bezos Earth Fund. A few days before the Financial Times story, President Andrew Steer announced in an extended LinkedIn post that he was stepping down. And late last year, IRS filings revealed the operation had launched a 501c3, the Bezos Earth Fund Foundation, in February 2023. So far, that entity has not operated like a typical foundation. It ended 2023 without a cent in assets, while its only expense was a $13,865,842 payment to the Bezos Earth Fund LLC for “philanthropic advisory services.”
Only insiders know for sure who ended this relationship. Maybe SBTi thought it was better for their reputation to find other funders. Maybe the Bezos Earth Fund never intended to continue backing the group. Maybe it was all about Trump. Most coverage of this episode has focused on what it may convey about the true depth of one centibillionaire’s commitment to climate giving. But it also underlines the deeply fraught nature of support from all megadonors at a time when the sector is more dependent on them than ever.
