Tech titans want the richest Californians to pay for pandemic preparedness

The organisation that the measure would create - the California Institute for Pandemic Prevention - would distribute public health grants to researchers, institutions, and scientists studying ways to reduce the transmission of dangerous pathogens. — Reuters

SACRAMENTO: Gabe Bankman-Fried, a former Wall Street trader, has raised US$12mil (RM52mil) from a cryptocurrency trading firm founded by his brother, Sam Bankman-Fried. Dustin Moskovitz, a billionaire who roomed with Mark Zuckerberg in college and helped found Facebook in 2004, funds a nonprofit with his wife that has ponied up US$6.5mil (RM28mil).

And Max Henderson, a startup investor and former Google executive, is using that money to spearhead a campaign for a statewide ballot initiative that would tax California’s wealthiest residents and fund public health initiatives, with the ambitious goal of preventing another pandemic from ripping across the country.