Tim Cook Will Donate $785 Million Fortune To Charity ... After Paying For Nephew's Tuition

First there was Warren Buffett, then Mark Zuckerberg and now Tim Cook. The Apple CEO told Fortune magazine on Thursday that he intends to donate his $785 million nest egg to charity. He just needs to pay for his nephew's college education first.

Cook, 54, is the subject of a lengthy profile in Fortune, which estimated his net worth at $120 million and another $665 million in stock if it was all fully vested. While Cook isn't worth the billions of dollars that Buffett and Zuckerberg are, his pronouncement catapults him into the ranks of the richest executives in the world who have turned to philanthropy.

“You want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripples for change,” Cook told Fortune.

Cook largely kept his private life out of the headlines until coming out as gay in October. But under his leadership, Apple has also become a more philanthropic organization.

Cook praised company executives in 2013 for donating $50 million to hospitals in Stanford, California, and another $50 million to Project RED, the national organization that examines how technology can improve education. Only weeks after becoming CEO, he introduced a charitable matching program for Apple employees.

But it appears that privacy will continue to be part of his modus operandi, with Cook telling Fortune he's aiming for a quiet, “systematic approach” to charity that involves more than just giving money.