Elon Musk’s Latest Innovation: Troll Philanthropy
The New York Times
Some very wealthy people give their money away in an attempt to burnish their reputations. Not the Tesla C.E.O.
The richest people on earth typically devote a share of their vast resources to charity. That is the bargain and the expectation, anyway.
Jeff Bezos, until very recently the world’s richest human, has been applying himself dutifully if a bit cautiously to the task, giving money to food banks and homeless families while pledging $10 billion of the fortune he earned through the online retailer Amazon to fight climate change.
The latest richest human, Elon Musk, has taken a rather different tack. There was the public spat with the director of the World Food Programme on Twitter, for instance, announcing, “If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.”
