Internet’s famous Bald Eagles, Jackie and Shadow, gets millions in donation from OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife to protect their nest
IThe 63 acres of shoreline forest below Jackie and Shadow’s nest was supposed to become 50 luxury homes and a marina. It won’t, because Greg Brockman, OpenAI‘s co-founder and president, and his wife Anna wrote a $5.5 million cheque with days left on the clock.That donation closed a $10 million fundraising target that Friends of Big Bear Valley had been chasing since February, and it clears the way for the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust to buy Moon Camp outright. The parcel sits in Fawnskin, California, a short flight from the nest that FOBBV has livestreamed since 2015. It is the last undeveloped stretch of Big Bear Lake’s shoreline, and conservationists have spent months arguing that a marina next door would end the nesting site as viewers know it.Anna Brockman said the pair had been watching the eagle cam like everyone else. The birds, she said, inspire perseverance and a sense of connectedness to something greater, to nature. Money raised beyond the $10 million goes toward long-term care of the land, which also shelters San Bernardino flying squirrels and a rare endemic plant.
Twenty-five thousand small donors got halfway there, then Brockman’s finished the job
The campaign was never designed around a single benefactor. More than 25,000 donations arrived over six months, most of them modest, and together they covered a little under half the target. FOBBV fundraising lead Jenny Voisard credited a community with a real love for Jackie and Shadow’s wellbeing. The San Bernardino Board of Supervisors had already approved the Moon Camp development, with county officials maintaining it posed no threat to local bald eagles.The gift is an unusual line item for the Brockmans. Their giving has skewed heavily political: $25 million each to the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. in 2025, per the Brennan Center for Justice, and $50 million into Leading the Future, a super PAC pushing lighter AI regulation that Greg Brockman helped launch with Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The Information puts their total contributions to Trump-aligned PACs near $75 million. OpenAI has repeatedly noted that this is personal money and that employees speak for themselves, not the company.
Saving the habitat was the easy part—Jackie is the harder story
Jackie was picked up on the ground near Dana Point Park on July 17, unable to fly after a scrap with two subadult eagles. Cell phone video showed her rolling onto her back and driving them off with her talons. At the Ojai Raptor Center, vets found severe anemia and kidney inflammation, gave her a blood transfusion, and moved her out of the ICU by late July.Monday’s bloodwork went the wrong way. Her packed cell volume has fallen to 13 percent, and the cause remains unidentified while advanced testing continues. Her chicks, Sandy and Luna, fledged around August 1.The nest is safe for generations. Its matriarch is not.
