MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – NOVEMBER 04: Sergey Brin attends the 2019 Breakthrough Prize at NASA Ames … [+]
Google cofounder Sergey Brin, the ninth richest person in the world, just gave $127 million worth of Google stock on Monday to two charitable groups.
According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Brin gave away 1.07 million shares of Google parent company Alphabet, a tiny fraction of his 739 million shares in the company. While the filing itself doesn’t detail where those shares went, a source familiar with the matter tells Forbes they were donated to the charitable Sergey Brin Family Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Brin’s gift isn’t unusual. He typically donates Alphabet shares to his foundation at least once or twice per year. As of the end of 2020, the Sergey Brin Family Foundation has distributed more than $520 million to a smattering of nonprofits around the San Francisco Bay Area, where Brin lives, and elsewhere. The foundation had more than $3 billion in net assets in 2020, the most recent year tax forms are available. Brin has also donated at least $23 million worth of Alphabet shares to his wife Nicole Shanahan’s Bia Echo Foundation. (Brin filed for divorce from Shanahan in January.)
Brin’s donation to the Michael J. Fox foundation isn’t surprising either. The foundation focuses on finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease, which has long been an important cause for Brin because an inherited form of the disease runs in his family.
Forbes estimates that Brin is worth nearly $96.6 billion, with 90% of his wealth coming from his stake in Alphabet. Brin stepped down as president of the tech giant in 2019, but he remains a controlling shareholder and board member. Though he’s kept a low profile since exiting Google, his personal life has been under a microscope recently. The Wall Street Journal reported in late July that his wife Nicole Shanahan had an affair with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the richest person in the world. While Musk and a lawyer for Shanahan have denied the affair, Brin has been silent on the matter.