Nice idea in concept, but she’s not short of a penny or 2 herself, so is she just calling out those with more money than her or is she giving her wealth away as well?
Yes, she is.
I think there is a bit of disparity there - he is worth nearly $500bn and just been given a pay deal that will see him have 25% of Tesla if he meets certain targets. She is etimated to be worth $50m…
Ok, I know very little about her so was curious if she is actually following her own speach or expecting others to do it without backing up her own idea.
It doesn’t change the fact that someone having $50M could make a huge difference for a lot of people as well.
You could make that argument about anyone earning minimum wage upwards though because there is always some worse off and few people run their finances optimally..
The point is Musk is considered to be the richest man in the world. That status makes the question more poignant.
Yes, they’re both rich but your net worrh is probably much closer to hers than she is to his.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have been leading the charge in billionaire philanthropy. Larry Ellison has pledged to give away 95% of his wealth. It remains to be seen what happens when Buffet ages out, as I think his avuncular style, and old man status, persuaded many billionaires to sign up to his giving pledge.
The story is a mixed bag. The likes of Musk and Bezos do not appear to be very philanthropic in relation to the vast wealth they have. I wonder if an interest in space exploration affects that?
Billy Eilish is putting her money where her mouth is, as the article above notes, and just gave away about 20-25% of her wealth, which is very commendable.
The difference between 50m and even 1 billion is difficult to intuit. It is not remotely hypocritical to be rich and still think that something’s has gone wrong with an economy that people at the top can take such a high share of the rewards such they end up with a billion in net worth.
I’d be interested to see in which kind of charity these people invest. Do you know? Gates is widely know for having invested large amounts in vaccinating people all over the world, but otherwise, I know nothing about that topic.
Buffett gave heavily to the Gates Foundation. He has also donated through his ex wifes foundation and is leaving much of what he has left through foundations run by his three children.
I think he gives each of these some of his stock in Berkshire Hathaway with a demand that they sell it off rather than hold it. He wrote a thanks giving letter just a couple of days ago which mentions again his plans to leave his money to his childrens charities.
Nope. Trump has just put Jared Isaacman back in charge of NASA. As a former partner of Musk its no surprise that grift will continue. Musk hasnt hit a single one of his self proclaimed targets with regard to Space X or Tesla for that matter, yet they still get the contracts, subsidies and bail outs.
There seems to be a arc here in the sense that Bezos and Musk are not “done” yet and are still at the apex or journey to it. Buffet, Gates and even Henery Wellcome, of yester year, really started down the path of philanthropy later in their arcs. Some never go down that path.
Carnegie and Rockefeller both spent enormous amounts of money on philanthropy in part because the other one was so they felt they had to or they’d look bad. Carnegie also had a buffet like view of inherited wealth and thought it was actively detrimental to the people who inherited it, thus he had to find a way to get rid of one of the biggest fortunes the world had ever seen.
Today these fuckers think they’re going to live forever so are not worrying about what happens to their money when they aren’t around anymore
Time taken to count to a million - eleven and a half days.
Time taken to count to a billion - 31 years.
If more people understood the difference between a million and a billion, and didn’t just think a billion is the next one up, there would be rioting that people could have this much wealth.
Time taken to count to a trillion - 31,000 years! And Musk is on the way, with a few others following suit.
I can’t remember who it was that I read recently (might have been something posted on here) but it said something like 25 trillionaires and a French style revolution would be the outcome of the path we are on.
I’m wondering: where are nowadays’ Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Diderot, Condorcet?
In order to transform society, you need thinkers and philosophers before that, who have the ability to imagine another, fairer society. Imo, we need a new age of Enlightenment coming to the fore (or at least a follow-up of that), irrigating society and leading to the necessary changes. If violence can be avoided, all the better. Revolutions are always blood-bathes.
But indeed, let a sufficiently important number of people be deprived of the basics, and you have a blood-bath on your hands, sooner or later. There are enough examples of that around the world.