Jeff Bezos Gives $200 Million to Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledged $200 million to the Smithsonian Institution to benefit its National Air and Space Museum, the organization announced Wednesday. Bezos is directing $130 million to launch a new education center at the museum, and the remaining $70 million will help pay for the museum’s extensive renovation project.

The gift is the first donation Bezos has publicized this year. After leading Amazon for 27 years, he stepped down from the CEO post on July 5, although he will stay involved as the company’s executive chairman. With this latest gift, he has given a total of about $12.4 billion to nonprofits since 2011. The bulk of that comes from the $10 billion he gave last year to launch the Bezos Earth Fund, a grant maker through which he is supporting nonprofits and other entities that are working to combat climate change.

In 2018, he gave $2 billion to create the Day One Fund, which houses two entities: an operating foundation that runs nonprofit preschools in low-income neighborhoods and a grant-making foundation to support charities that help the homeless. The multi-billion dollar gifts, while significant in terms of their amounts, are a fraction of Bezos’s overall wealth, which Forbes pegged at $211.6 billion this week.

The National Air and Space Museum’s new education center will be named the Bezos Learning Center and will feature programs and activities aimed at inspiring students to explore careers in Steam (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) fields. The money will also go toward efforts to help school teachers across the country more easily use the Smithsonian’s collections in their lessons and student projects. The center will coordinate Steam-related programs across all Smithsonian museums.

“The Smithsonian plays a vital role in igniting the imaginations of our future builders and dreamers,” Bezos said in a news release. “Every child is born with great potential, and it’s inspiration that unlocks that potential. My love affair with science, invention, and space did that for me, and I hope this gift does that for others.”

The gift to the National Air and Space Museum is timely. On Tuesday, the Federal Aviation Administration approved Blue Origin’s license to launch Bezos and three other passengers into suborbital space on July 20. Bezos founded the space tourism company in 2000, one of several billionaires to have started such companies in recent years.

Bezos is a longtime donor to the Smithsonian. He gave $1 million to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2016 and has previously given to the National Air and Space Museum, according to the institution. He has appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors twice in the last several years.