Reed Hastings Grants Nearly $500 Million in Netflix Shares as a Gift

Reed Hastings has given away 790,000 shares of Netflix — worth nearly $500 million — as a gift, according to a regulatory filing. There’s no information about who or what is the recipient of the streaming mogul’s latest largesse.

Hastings, the co-founder, executive chairman and former CEO of Netflix, disposed of 790,000 shares on July 24, according to an SEC ownership disclosure Friday. The shares were given as a gift but the beneficiary was not disclosed, according to the filing. Following the transaction, Hastings — through the Hastings-Quillin Family Trust, established with his wife, Patty Quillin — owns 2,201,541 shares of the streaming giant.

A Netflix rep did not immediately respond to a request for more info.

This January, Hastings donated 2 million shares of Netflix to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a grant worth more than $1.2 billion, which is his biggest single charitable donation to date. The Silicon Valley Community Foundation says it works to “bridge critical gaps and divisions to deliver strategies that reduce systemic inequities” in the Bay Area.

Separately, this week Hastings revealed a $7 million donation to a super PAC supporting the presidential campaign of VP Kamala Harris.

Hastings, who co-founded Netflix in 1997, stepped down as CEO after serving in the role for 25 years. Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters serve as the company’s co-CEOs.

Hastings has a long track record as an educational philanthropist. In 2020, Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, gave $120 million to Spelman College, Morehouse College and the United Negro College Fund for scholarships to historically Black colleges and universities. Last year, Hastings donated $20 million to Minerva University, styled as a next-generation institution of higher education. Hastings and Quillin also donated $10 million to Tougaloo College, an HBCU in Mississippi, and the couple have supported the KIPP Foundation, which runs a national network of tuition-free charter schools serving low-income communities of color.