Brin’s Mystery $700 Million Stock Gift Went To Philanthropies

Sergey Brin’s mystery gift this week of Alphabet Inc. shares valued at almost $700 million went to a trio of philanthropic organizations, according to a spokesperson for his family office.

The largest portion of Brin’s gift went to Catalyst4, a nonprofit which Brin started in 2021 with a dual purpose of supporting research into central nervous system diseases and climate-change solutions, the spokesperson said Saturday. Those 3.2 million shares were split evenly between Alphabet Class A and Class C stock.

The shares would have been worth more than $500 million on Wednesday when the Google co-founder reported in a regulatory filing that he gifted roughly 4.1 million Alphabet shares, without disclosing the recipients.

More than 580,000 Alphabet shares went to Brin’s family foundation, while an additional 282,000 were gifted to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which supports research into Parkinson’s disease, according to the spokesperson for Bayshore Global, his family office.

Brin, 51, is the world’s 10th richest person with a net worth of $143 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.