JD.com founder and CEO Richard Liu will donate company shares worth about $2.34 billion to charity, the Chinese e-commerce giant said on Wednesday, adding to a list of similar philanthropic pledges from the country's top tech billionaires.

The move comes as China tightens scrutiny on its tech sector, including JD.com and rival Alibaba Group Holding , as part of President Xi Jinping's "common prosperity " drive to ease inequality in the world's second-largest economy.

Liu will give away about 62.4 million Class B ordinary JD shares, the company disclosed in a filing https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1549802/000119312522025112/d302215d6k.htm, without specifying the third-party foundation receiving the donation.

American depository shares in JD, each representing two ordinary shares of the company, closed at $75.08 on Tuesday and were last trading down nearly 1.9% on Wednesday.

Other big Chinese tech leaders who have ramped up charitable donations amid the government crackdown include ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, who pledged 500 million yuan ($78.61 million) to the Chinese city of Longyan for education.

According to a filing in June last year, food delivery giant Meituan's founder and chief executive, Wang Xing, said he would donate shares worth about $2.27 billion to his personal charity.

In April 2021, tech giant Tencent said it would invest 50 billion yuan in environmental and social initiatives amid regulatory scrutiny from antitrust regulators. ($1 = 6.3605 Chinese yuan)