How generous are Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos?



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SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the Axel Springer Media Awards in Berlin, Germany on Tuesday, December 1, 2020 (Hannibal Hanschke / Pool via AP)
SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the Axel Springer Media Awards in Berlin, Germany on Tuesday, December 1, 2020 (Hannibal Hanschke / Pool via AP)

I recently wrote about the immense wealth in the hands of tech billionaires, especially Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and how they should consider dismantling their businesses to strengthen our democracy. Here I want to delve into another facet of what one might consider their personal responsibility, which is philanthropy.

First, among this cohort, it is widely recognized that Bill Gates is light years ahead of the rest not only in terms of giving and with the Gates Foundation, but also in terms of organizing his fellow billionaires so that they join the Giving Pledge. And of course all Gates has for his problem are the trolls insisting he created the coronavirus. (No good deed goes unpunished, even if you are one of the richest people in the world. Perhaps especially if you are.)

Before we dive into Musk and Bezos’ gifts, a quick note about MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, who has suddenly gone from a mostly anonymous wife to one of the richest women in the world. world. Scott seems to have recognized this responsibility because shortly after her divorce two years ago she intervened. Last July, she donated $ 1.7 billion to historically black colleges and universities. And then in December, she gave an additional $ 4.1 billion to fight COVID.

“I thought MacKenzie Bezos Scott had done a lot of great things,” says Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies. “She hasn’t created a huge philanthropic intermediary in her mirror image that will exist for the next century, where her unborn great-grandchildren will continue to donate money. It transfers money in an agile and efficient manner. It gives to groups that have been excluded from decision-making, to excluded communities, to racial justice organizations.

Having tens of billions of dollars suddenly plunged into your lap is very different from a fortune that proliferates over several years, and of course Scott can sell his stock without affecting Amazon’s stock price ( AMZN) as he would if her ex-husband announced that, say, he was dumping 25% of his stake in AMZN.

More info on Bezos in a second, but let’s first take a look at Elon Musk, who got stratospheric rich overnight. (See this five-year stock chart.To be fair, it is a lot different to plan for philanthropy when you have $ 200 million versus $ 200 billion. (Such problems!) But Musk understands this, in which Recode did a good job, starting with a quintessentially iconoclastic Musk tweet.

The Musk Foundation website is ridiculously stripped down and doesn’t show any sort of Musk donation. According to Forbes, it appears Musk has given at least $ 100 million over the past 20 years to various causes such as scientific research, artificial intelligence, the University of Pennsylvania (Musk’s alma mater) and the Sierra Club. Musk also signed the Giving Pledge in 2012.

Forbes notes: “In 2018, [Musk] tweeted that it would sell about $ 100 million of Tesla shares “every few years” to charities, and that it will make “major disbursements in about 20 years when Tesla is in stable condition.” So look at 2038! But Musk better crack if he plans to give a ‘majority of [his] wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes, either during [his] lives or in [his] will ”, as stated in the pledge. Hence his help tweet.

It makes sense that Bezos, who has been super-rich longer than Musk, has been more philanthropic. Bezos reportedly made the largest philanthropic donation of 2020, a $ 10 billion grant to start the Bezos Earth Fund, “… a global initiative [that] funds scientists, activists and NGOs … who help preserve and protect the natural world. And Bezos, along with Amazon, has donated hundreds of millions to other organizations, including the Smithsonian, to local shelters in Washington state and to fight Alzheimer’s disease. (There’s no doubt that Bezos and Scott are keeping an eye on each other’s largesse.)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos answers questions during his press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, Thursday, September 19, 2019. Bezos announced the Climate Pledge, setting himself a goal of respecting the Paris 10 Agreement years earlier.  (AP Photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos answers questions during his press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, Thursday, September 19, 2019. (AP Photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

One problem for Bezos is that it is difficult for him to match the scale of his gifts with his ever-growing net worth. Example: Bezos gave $ 500,000 to Worldreader, an NGO that seeks to “bring literacy to peripheral and underserved areas by providing towns and villages with e-readers and e-books.” Leaving aside the fact that it seems like a great way to introduce kids to Kindle and Amazon.com, this $ 500,000 donation by Bezos equates to someone with a net worth of $ 1 million giving Worldreader around $ 3. dollars. (I understand that the philanthropy of the rich is ungrateful to people like me.)

Musk and Bezos may be donating anonymously. I once asked Steve Jobs why he wasn’t more philanthropic and he answered with a question:

“How do you know that I don’t donate anonymously?” Jobs asked me.

“You too?” I asked in return.

“I’m not going to tell you,” Jobs said.

(Touched Steve.)

In fact, Alexa Cortes Culwell, co-founder of Open Impact, a philanthropy research and advisory firm based in San Mateo, Calif., Says wealthy technologists are doing their part when it comes to philanthropy. “We know Silicon Valley is overtaking the country in terms of growing wealth. In fact, Silicon Valley exceeds donations. If you look at how it compares to other cities and the state as a whole, Silicon Valley is pretty generous. “

It’s a good thing that is happening because the rest of us aren’t that keen on charity right now apparently.

“The concentration of wealth across the country becomes even more remarkable and is reflected in general patterns of giving,” says Amir Pasic, dean of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. “There are fewer households in the United States who donate. Most nonprofits rely on a smaller number of wealthy donors. “

Which means more and more charities, NGOs, and foundations will rely even more heavily on the super-rich, which seems to be an unhealthy trend in our country these days.

Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter: @server.

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