Stephen Schwarzman and William Gross Are Among 13 New Signatories of the Giving Pledge

Dec. 21, 2020

Chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group Stephen A. Schwarzman (left) and PIMCO’s co-founder William Gross (right) are among 13 billionaires who have signed the Giving Pledge since May 2019

Since May 2019, another 13 billionaires around the world have signed the Giving Pledge, a global, multi-generational commitment by some of the world’s wealthiest to give a majority of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes, either during their lifetimes or in their wills.

Among those new to the list are William Gross, co-founder of PIMCO, the world’s largest fixed-income investment company, and Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman, CEO, and co-founder of investment firm Blackstone, according to the Giving Pledge’s announcement Monday.

Over the past several decades, Gross has donated more than $700 million to charity, the majority of which went to the William, Jeff and Jennifer Gross Family Foundation. The foundation, which primarily focuses on humanitarian efforts, education, and healthcare, gives nearly $20 million every year. Gross also founded and provided seed funding for the PIMCO Foundation.

“Sharing is always an evolving feature of a healthy society, both with maturing children and aging adults,” Gross, 76, wrote in his pledge letter.

Schwarzman, 73, has given away over $1 billion to fund projects across education, culture, the arts, and other areas. His major gifts have helped establish a center for the Humanities at the University of Oxford; created a college at MIT dedicated to the study of ArtificiaI Intelligence; built a first-of-its-kind student center at Yale; renovated and expanded the New York Public Library; and founded Schwarzman Scholars, an international fellowship program at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

“My philanthropy has brought a tremendous sense of joy and meaning to my life and I anticipate I will find more ways to give back during my lifetime,” Schwarzman wrote in his pledge letter.

So far, the Giving Pledge, launched by Warren Buffett along with Bill and Melinda Gates a decade ago, has 216 signatories.

“As we mark 10 years of the Pledge, I want to thank the more than 200 individuals and families from 24 countries [who] have joined in this commitment to leave the world better than we found it,” Buffett said in a statement.

The Giving Pledge normally releases new signatories in May to coincide with its annual gathering, but this year’s gathering had to be canceled due to Covid-19 and the organization held off on the announcement until the end of year.

Some of the signatories have been quietly added to the organization’s website, givingpledge.org, throughout the year. Others were just announced Monday.

The full list of new signatories of the Giving Pledge：

• Marcel Arsenault, CEO of Real Capital Solutions and his wife, Cynda Collins Arsenault;
• Sarah and Rich Barton, co-founder and CEO of real estate firm Zillow;
• Ron Conway, founder and co-managing Partner of SV Angel and his wife, Gayle;
• William Gross, co-founder of PIMCO
• Gordon V. Hartman, who sold his home- building business in 2005 to focus on the special-needs community through his Morgan’s Wonderland;
• The U.K.-based Yan Huo, managing partner and chief investment officer of Capula Investment Management LLP, and his wife, Xue Fang;
• American investors Robert E. “Bob” and Dorothy “Dottie” King;
• Portuguese fashion mogul José Ferreira Neves, founder of Farfetch;
• Canadian businessman Jim Pattison;
• Chad Richison, founder of Paycom, an online payroll and human resource technology provider;
• Jeff Rothschild, co-founder of the storage software company Veritas Software and the online gaming company Mpath Interactive, and his wife, Marieke;
• Stephen Schwarzman, founder of Blackstone
• David Weekley, chairman of his eponymous home building company, and his wife, Bonnie.