World’s Richest Man Jeff Bezos Asks The Public To Pitch In For Amazon Workers’ Sick Leave

amazon relief fund

The richest man on the face of the fucking Earth Jeff Bezos has had his ass handed to him for asking the public to donate to his COVID-19 relief fund.

I’m sorry Bezos, but I think you can foot the bill for this one.

The Amazon Relief Fund (the company, not the rainforest) is essentially a fund in which delivery partners and drivers can “apply for grants approximately equal to up to two-weeks of pay if diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine by the government or Amazon.”

I know what you’re thinking, isn’t this… sick leave? Well, yes. Jeff Bezos, the richest man on the entire planet is crowdfunding for his company’s own sick leave policy. It’s utter madness.

According to the statement, “this fund will support our employees and contractors around the world who face financial hardships from other qualifying events, such as a natural disaster, federally declared emergency, or unforeseen personal hardship. Applicants can apply and receive a personal grant from the fund ranging from $400 to $5,000 USD per person.”

It’s important to note that Amazon provided a statement to fact-checking site Snopes, in which they asserted that they did not ask for donations.

“We are not and have not asked for donations and the Amazon Relief Fund has been funded by Amazon with an initial donation of $25 million. The structure to operate a fund like this, which hundreds of companies do through the same third-party, requires the program to be open to public contributions but we are not soliciting those contributions in any way.”

However, it appears the wording on the website has been changed to remove language that indicated that Amazon was urging customers to donate to the fund.

According to Snopes, a previous version of the website from March 19 states: “The Fund relies primarily on individual donations from individuals and support from Amazon.com Services LLC to fund this program.”

In case you weren’t already, Jeff Bezos has a net worth of an estimated $114 billion USD, which makes him the richest person alive today.

If anyone can afford to pay their workers sick leave, it’s Bezos. This man can afford to pay all of our sick leave, but especially Amazon’s sick leave.

Naturally, Twitter users lost their fucking minds over this.

https://twitter.com/BradyLent/status/1243069822558240768

https://twitter.com/Tamuclaire/status/1243057251767611393

If you’ve forgotten how rich Bezos is, have a look at this TikToker who perfectly illustrated it using grains of rice.

If this isn’t reason to eat the rich, I don’t know what is.

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