Netflix Co-Founder Gifts Nearly $500 Million in Shares to Charity

Reed Hastings, the co-founder and executive chairman of Netflix, has made a significant charitable contribution by gifting 790,000 shares of the streaming giant to a charitable organization.

According to a regulatory filing, the shares are valued at nearly $500 million, and the recipient of this generous gift has not been publicly disclosed. However, it has been reported that Hastings has donated a total of about $1.76 billion worth of stock to charitable causes over time.

This recent contribution was made on July 24 and is part of Hastings’s ongoing commitment to philanthropy, particularly in educational initiatives. Through the Hastings-Quillin Family Trust, which he established with his wife, Patty Quillin, he now retains 2,201,541 shares in Netflix.

Hastings, who helped launch Netflix in 1997, stepped down as CEO after leading the company for 25 years. Now, Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters are the co-CEOs of the company.

He and Quillin are known for their philanthropic efforts in education, donating $120 million in 2020 to support scholarships for historically Black colleges and universities. They also contributed $20 million last year to Minerva University, along with $10 million to Tougaloo College, which is another HBCU in Mississippi.

Furthermore, the couple has supported the KIPP Foundation, which operates a network of tuition-free charter schools serving low-income communities of color, reflecting their dedication to reducing educational disparities.