PC: Bloomberg
Their personal circumstances changed in late July 2026, when they announced that they were divorcing. The fund’s original $50 million commitment spans a decade, although public reporting has raised questions about the full accounting of its spending and the measurement of its results. In 2021, she and Joe Tsai committed $220 million to the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, a collaboration involving six universities and anchored at Stanford.
They said the separation would not alter their respective positions within Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment and the teams. Joe Tsai would remain chairman of the organisation and governor of the Nets, while Clara Wu Tsai would continue as vice chair and governor of the Liberty. The announcement did not change the public plans associated with the Social Justice Fund, including its proposed work with new mothers. Wu Tsai’s interests also include human performance research. The initiative studies elite athletes and human performance, with the broader aim of applying findings to health and wellbeing beyond professional sport.
How Clara Wu Tsai built her role in Brooklyn
Billionaire Clara Wu Tsai has helped transform the New York Liberty from a struggling basketball team into a franchise valued at $600 million, while directing millions of dollars towards social and economic initiatives in Brooklyn. The initiative forms part of a $50 million commitment she made with her husband, Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, in 2020. Her interests also extend to film production, including Werner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2026. Her work in Brooklyn took on a different dimension in August 2020. During a period of racial justice protests, she and her husband, Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, announced a $50 million commitment over 10 years for social justice and economic mobility initiatives, with Brooklyn as the principal focus. The Social Justice Fund has earmarked money for a guaranteed income initiative aimed at new mothers in the neighbourhood, according to reporting by the New York Times cited in October 2026. In 2021, it introduced EXCELerate, offering low-interest and interest-free loans to businesses dealing with the effects of the pandemic. In March 2026, the fund also joined the Asian American Foundation, Renaissance Economic Development Corporation and New York State in a $5.5 million small-business lending initiative. Its BK-XL accelerator, developed with Boston-based Visible Hands, invested more than $4 million in 17 startups led by founders of colour. Working with NYC Parks, it says it has renovated 12 basketball courts across four Brooklyn parks. The court improvements form part of an initiative costing roughly $2 million. After Oder questioned the original estimate of 70,000, the fund revised it to 12,000. The fund has told him that administrative costs account for 10% of its money.
He has also reported that tax filings for the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation list no grants and argued that the fund does not provide a complete public accounting of its expenditure.
For families adjusting to the arrival of a child, unrestricted financial assistance can be used according to individual needs, including household expenses and costs associated with caring for a baby. Now, her philanthropic work is turning towards new mothers in Brownsville, where a proposed guaranteed income programme aims to provide direct financial support to families. Alongside investments in sport, education and small businesses, the plan adds another dimension to Wu Tsai’s efforts to expand economic opportunities across Brooklyn. Wu Tsai occupies several positions across sport, entertainment and philanthropy. She is vice chair of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, the organisation behind the Brooklyn Nets, the New York Liberty and Barclays Center, and serves as governor of the Liberty. She co-owns the San Diego Seals, a National Lacrosse League team, and holds trustee positions at Stanford University, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Lincoln Center. Under this model, selected recipients receive regular cash payments without being required to spend the money on specific items or meet conventional work-related conditions. The approach differs from universal basic income, which would extend payments to a much wider population. New York City has already tested related approaches. The Bridge Project, a non-profit organisation, has run a cash assistance programme for expectant mothers, while the city has also explored guaranteed income through other initiatives. The Brownsville programme is still short on publicly available details. Its planned scale, payment amounts and launch date have not been disclosed, leaving questions about how many families might participate and how the scheme will operate. Small businesses were among the first beneficiaries of the fund’s economic mobility work. The programme was intended to help owners reopen, maintain operations or recover from a difficult trading period. Such arrangements place the fund alongside other organisations providing capital to businesses that may struggle to obtain financing through conventional channels. The organisation has also backed early-stage companies. The fund has put money into neighbourhood projects beyond business financing. The locations include East New York, Flatlands, Crown Heights and Sunset Park, areas where gun violence has been a concern. Arts education is another strand of the programme. Its school projects draw on the work of Brooklyn-born artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and jazz musician Max Roach, connecting their legacies with music and arts curricula in public schools. Wu Tsai has also used Barclays Center as a venue for free community events, including summer concerts on the arena plaza. Brooklyn journalist Norman Oder, who has followed the arena and its development for around two decades, has examined the fund’s public reporting and raised concerns about how its spending and claimed impact can be independently assessed. Among the figures he challenged was the number of students reached by the Basquiat programme.
The team was previously owned by Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan, who moved it away from the Garden in 2018 to the Westchester County Center in White Plains. The venue had a capacity of roughly 5,000, a substantial change for a franchise associated with New York’s largest sporting arena. Joe and Clara Tsai acquired the Liberty in January 2019 and brought the team to Barclays Center the following season. In 2021, the Tsais arranged charter flights for Liberty players, an expense that resulted in a record $500,000 league fine at the time. The $80 million project is scheduled to open in 2027. Part of its financing came through the sale of a minority stake in the team at a then-record valuation of $450 million. The Tsais paid a reported $10 million to $14 million for the franchise, while Sportico valued it at $600 million in 2026. CNBC valued the WNBA team at $1 billion in 2026, giving the Liberty ownership group a recent example of how quickly valuations in the league can rise. Asked by Fortune earlier in 2026 whether she would prefer to build a billion-dollar basketball franchise or achieve a major scientific discovery, she said she wanted both.
Wu Tsai has said she hopes to build the Liberty into a billion-dollar team, a target that would place it among the most valuable franchises in women’s sport. Wu Tsai’s sporting career has been closely tied to the fortunes of the Liberty. Wu Tsai has since spoken about the importance of giving women’s basketball players resources comparable to those available to male athletes. In an interview with Vanity Fair, she described the players as highly capable athletes whose opportunities had not always reflected their talent. The ownership group made several investments that attracted attention across the WNBA. Charter flights have since become standard across the league, reflecting a wider change in how teams handle player travel. The franchise is also developing a new practice facility in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The financial figures have moved sharply since the acquisition. The Golden State Valkyries have already reached that mark. The Social Justice Fund operates as an initiative of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, which the couple established together. Joe Tsai is the co-founder and chairman of Alibaba Group, the Chinese technology and e-commerce company. The foundation’s activities sit alongside the couple’s investments in professional sport and other areas of philanthropy. Wu Tsai has described her ambitions for Liberty and scientific research as goals she does not want to choose between. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.