It’s perhaps one of the most striking signs that Apple is running under new leadership. The company announced on Thursday that it’s donating $2.5 million to the American Red Cross’ Sandy relief efforts, VentureBeat reports.
While it’s always been heralded for its innovation, Apple wasn’t considered the most generous company when the late Steve Jobs maintained control of the company. It launched a corporate charity in 1987 that only lasted 15 months. And in 2010, Jobs –- who accrued an estimated $8.3 billion — declined joining the Giving Pledge, an initiative started by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates that’s gotten 92 billionaires to pledge half their wealth to charity.
While some have speculated that the tech giant donated anonymously, Jobs never made the kind of grand giving gestures that Cook offered up on Thursday.
Now that he’s taken over as CEO, Cook seems more intent on positioning the company as a fixture in the philanthropy scene.
In an internal company email that 9to5mac.com received announcing the $2.5 million gift to the Red Cross, Cook wrote: “For the past week, our thoughts have been with those affected by Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. And Apple employees and customers the world over have raised millions of dollars toward the relief effort so far. But we can always do more.”
This announcement comes on the heels of a number of other recent benevolent gestures.
Back in February, the new CEO told employees that it has donated $100 million split between two Stanford hospitals and Product RED, according to theverge.com. In September, Cook declared that Apple would match its employee’s donations to nonprofit organizations up to $10,000 a year, according to Forbes.com.
“We are all really inspired by the generosity of our co-workers who give back to the community and this program is going to help that individual giving go even farther,” Cook said, according to the news outlet.