U2 lead singer Bono defends Steve Jobs over criticism about his philanthropy

Irish Sun (ANI) Sunday 4th September, 2011

Irish rock band U2's lead singer, Bono, has defended Apple's co-founder, Steve Jobs, after a columnist wrote that the billionaire businessman does not give enough to charity.

The singer wrote in a letter in response to the New York Times article that Jobs said there was 'nothing better than the chance to save lives', when he approached him about a campaign to fight AIDS in Africa, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Apple was the biggest contributor for the (Product) Red fund-raising brand to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, giving tens of millions of dollars, Bono wrote.

"'I'm proud to know him," Bono wrote about Jobs.

"'He's a poetic fellow, an artist and a businessman. Just because he's been extremely busy, that doesn't mean that he and his wife, Laurene, haven't been thinking about these things," he added.

Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote in a column that Jobs was not a 'prominent philanthropist' despite having accumulated 7.8 million dollras through holdings in Apple and the Walt Disney Company.

There was no public record of Jobs giving money to charity, Sorkin wrote. (ANI)