Martin Shkreli Loses Two CEO Positions; Charity Returns His $15,000 Donation on Principle
The notorious former pharmaceutical company CEO who once made headlines for exorbitantly hiking the price of AIDS medication is now finding his charitable donations are being returned to him. Most recently, Community Solutions, a charity focused on homelessness, returned a $15,000 donation to Shkreli.
Jake Maguire, a spokesperson for Community Solutions, said that they can’t accept the donation in good faith. “We serve people who depend on access to AIDS meds every day,” he said, “And as an organization I don’t think we can keep this money.” It must be tough to give up $15,000, but ultimately, it’s important to stick to your principles. Downright admirable, even.
When you include Hunter College High’s return of $1 million, it seems that we’ve now got solid proof that you can’t buy your way into humanity’s good graces. Well… most of humanity, anyway.
As we all know, Shkreli’s headed to prison pending an investigation into his illegal use of funds to pay off debt. I suppose it doesn’t really matter anymore whether he was making these donations as an act of trying to mend a guilty conscience or (more likely) for a tax write-off, because he’s likely to see some prison time, and he can’t use his “charitable nature” as a character defense.
Either way, he resigned from his position as CEO at Turing Pharmaceuticals, where he oh-so-famously hiked the price of a specific AIDS medication. Moreover, he was just fired from his other company, KaloBios, where he was also serving as CEO. Even if he somehow buys his way out of prison time, he probably can’t snag a job anywhere after all of this.
Later, dude.
(via Jezebel)
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