In December 2009, a month after his cybersecurity company Fortinet went public, Ken Xie put about a half-million dollars of stock into a brand-new foundation. Nearly two decades later, both the 63-year-old and his philanthropy are worth more than $1 billion.
The $1.1 billion Xie Foundation is one of the latest megaphilanthropies to emerge from Silicon Valley, following in a tradition that has birthed established and influential players like the Hewlett and Packard foundations and low-profile yet substantial operations such as the philanthropies of Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
The Sunnyvale, California-based foundation is not yet a peer of those forerunners, but it’s already in the philanthropic 1% — and like many institutions fueled by bits and bytes, it seems likely to get a lot bigger.
What does the Xie Foundation support?
Led by Ken Xie and his brother, Michael Xie, who formally became copresident of the foundation the year after it was formed, the operation has recently granted about $31 million annually. The brothers are still busy at Fortinet, where they are CEO and CTO, respectively, and Forbes puts their combined fortune at over $10 billion. (Messages to the foundation and Fortinet were not answered by press time.)
So far, the Xie Foundation’s growth has mostly benefitted a single recipient: Ken Xie’s alma mater, Stanford University, where he earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering and launched his first company, a software firewall firm called SIS, according to Forbes. Between 2022 and 2024, the school received $85 million from the philanthropy, or about 87% of its $98 million payout during that time.
The foundation’s other awards show the brothers’ philanthropic interests are, at least for now, mostly confined to elite education. In 2024, major grants went to the private K-12 Pinewood School in Los Altos ($2.5 million), Harvard University ($2.5 million), UC Berkeley ($287,700, two grants), and UC Santa Cruz ($100,000). Prior grantees include China’s Tsinghua University, University of Miami and New York University.
Most such awards go to schools themselves, but the Xie brothers have supported activism, too. In 2019, the foundation gave $10,000 to Students for Fair Admissions, the anti-affirmative action group that sued Harvard University for considering race in its admissions, reported the Harvard Crimson. The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruled most higher ed affirmative action programs illegal.
There are hints of other interests, such as country club sports. Xie Foundation’s biggest grantee outside education is a nonprofit that holds golf charity events, the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, which the foundation granted $1 million in 2023 and $1.9 million in 2022. Another recent grantee is the American Junior Golf Association ($250,000 in 2023). The foundation has also made small awards to the Asian American Tennis Foundation and East Palo Alto Tennis and Tutoring.
The Xie Foundation has also recently cut annual six-figure checks to the Kiss Institute for Practical Robotics, including $225,000 in 2024.
Unsurprisingly, given its narrow focus and its founders’ day jobs, the Xie Foundation has an exceedingly minimal public profile, with no website, social media profiles or other notable public presence. But it has attracted some high-profile critical attention.
In 2023, the investigative outlet ProPublica reported that the Xie Foundation had purchased a $3 million home in Cupertino, California, from Ken Xie’s new girlfriend while he was going through a divorce. She continued to live there, and he stayed there at times, as well. After ProPublica’s reporter contacted Xie’s lawyer, the foundation filed paperwork with the state declaring a “self-dealing event.” The lawyer said the filing was delayed due to an address mixup.
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New billionaire giving reinforces elite schools’ war chests
The Xie Foundation has only recently become one of America’s largest philanthropies, but its funding nevertheless reflects two core sector dynamics. Like many wealthy donors, the Xies have thus far overwhelmingly favored an institution that touched one of them personally, i.e., Stanford University. Such tendencies have helped build both Stanford’s $40-billion-plus endowment and similar war chests at other elite universities.
The tax policies that encourage such awards from mega-wealthy donors who often emerge from elite schools reinforce those institutions’ privileged positions, benefiting their students and professors, if not necessarily the average taxpayer. Rob Reich, a Stanford professor, discussed a similar dynamic in his 2018 book, “Just Giving,” although he highlighted tax-advantaged contributions to public schools in wealthy communities, not awards to private universities.
At the same time, perhaps we should be grateful that we know where the Xies have been sending their dollars. In recent years, tech billionaires like Larry Page and Jensen Huang have passed much of their funding to donor-advised funds, leaving it unclear whether dollars are reaching working charities, and if so, which ones. By contrast, these billionaire brothers are not just getting funds to recipients, but are letting us see who they favor.
Michael Kavate covers climate philanthropy and billionaire donors. He welcomes feedback, disagreements, tips and requests.
