eBay founder provides almost $2M to defund police — whereas funding non-public safety startup

The billionaire founding father of e-commerce web site eBay plowed cash into a personal safety startup billed because the “Uber for bodyguards” — whereas additionally donating almost $2 million to teams that advocate de-funding or abolishing the police, based on a report.

Pierre Omidyar, whose wealth is valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $8.91 billion as of Friday, reportedly forked over $500,000 to organizations that protested the police-involved killing of George Floyd in 2020 by his charitable group, the Omidyar Community.

Two different organizations tied to the Omidyar Community — PolicyLink and Democracy Fund — obtained $1.3 million to sponsor an internet site referred to as DefundPolice.org, a software utilized by advocates to name for cuts to police budgets, based on impartial journalist Lee Fang.

The Omidyar Community donated $300,000 to The Motion for Black Lives, a company that describes itself as an “abolitionist” coalition, reported Fang, who previous to turning into an impartial journalist labored for years as a reporter for The Intercept, a information web site based by Omidyar.

“Once we say ‘defund and abolish the police,’ we imply precisely that,” the Motion for Black Lives wrote in a latest assertion.

Fang cited tax information exhibiting that Omidyar Community gave one other $100,000 to a Chicago-based group referred to as Fairness and Transformation, which flies the banner of “defund[ing] police.”

However as a personal investor, Omidyar has poured his appreciable wealth into start-ups equivalent to Bond, a New York-based firm that enables individuals to order a bodyguard on demand, Fang wrote.

The Put up has sought remark from the Omidyar Community.

Based in 2017, the corporate raised $72 million in funding, together with investments from Omidyar. Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly is an advisor to the Bond board.

“With the Bond platform, bodyguards are now not only for celebrities and executives,” based on the corporate’s web site.

“Now you possibly can reserve inexpensive, highly-trained, {and professional} bodyguards everytime you want them, on-demand through the Bond platform and app.”

Omidyar’s funding portfolio additionally features a stake in Deep Sentinel, an AI-powered safety digital camera system that’s used to determine intruders, based on Fang.

Each the Bond app and Deep Sentinel have used the nationwide surge in crime — a lot of it attributed to the Defund the Police motion — to supply their merchandise as options.

Kelly advised Fox Information that “the police sadly have taken a step again” in recent times and that Bond “fills within the hole once you really feel considerably uncomfortable.”

Deep Sentinel lately advised Fox Information that its enterprise has “tripled” within the final 12 months on account of considerations over rising crime.