Bill Gates and other Top Elites commits $1 billion fund to fight climate change through energy innovation

When President-elect Donald Trump doubled down on his doubts about climate change, Bill Gates, Jack Ma, Jeff Bezos, Vinod Khosla, John Doerr and 15 other high-profile tech heavyweights have together come forward to form a new venture firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and announced a $1 billion fund dedicated clean energy innovation.

Though the official announcement is yet to appear on the Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) website, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates tweeted on Sunday to point the public to an early discussion on the investment.

Gates told Quartz, “Anything that leads to cheap, clean, reliable energy we’re open-minded to.

Apart from Bill Gates, Jack Ma, Jeff Bezos, Vinod Khosla, John Doerr, the board members of BEV also comprises Masayoshi Son (Softbank), Richard Branson (Virgin Group), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), just to name a few.

According to the report, the members of the Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund are worth about $170 billion, And while just a fraction of that wealth will be devoted to the clean energy innovation project, compared to most investment funds, BEV’s war chest is massive.

“The dialogue with the new administration as it comes in about how they see energy research will be important,” said Gates, just days before Trump is scheduled to meet with some of the biggest leaders in tech and innovation. “The general idea that research is a good deal fortunately is not a partisan thing.”

Source: Mashable