Coronavirus News: Cook, Musk, Zuckerberg, Benioff Among Tech CEOs Donating Masks, Ventilators

Leaders of major technology companies, including Apple’s Tim Cook and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, have pledged to donate “millions” of masks and ventilators to hospitals that are struggling to keep up with the growing number of coronavirus cases.

Cook led the charge Sunday when he took to Twitter to pledge Apple’s aid in helping supply hospitals and medical centers across the U.S. and Europe.

Zuckerberg followed, saying that Facebook was donating the 720,000 medical masks it had in reserve to “health professionals.” He said the company originally bought the masks in response to the California wildfires in 2019 but saw how hospitals needed more masks “urgently.”

Zuckerberg said Facebook was “working on sourcing millions of more to donate.”

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said on Sunday that he donating thousands of medical masks. He said the company had provided the first 9,000 masks to the University of California, San Francisco, and that Salesforce was working to donate another 5 million masks over the next week.

Elon Musk's Tesla, along with General Motors and Ford, will begin production of ventilators.

On Saturday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Musk was "working overtime" for ventilator production. Musk has also pledged to produce 250,000 masks.

After getting the greenlight, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he expected around 1,200 ventilators to be ready for distribution by the end of the week.