Elon Musk Is Donating $5.7 Billion To Charity, One Of The Largest Donations In History
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Two things to talk about in this blog. The first being the above, how Elon Musk donated $5.7 billion to charity and hired high stakes poker player Igor Kurganov to manage the money.
Bloomberg - The electric car and space mogul gifted $5.7 billion worth of Tesla Inc. stock to charity in the span of 10 days in November -- many times more than he’s given away through his eponymous foundation in the two decades since it was founded. Where that donation is going is a mystery, but it’s just one more signal that the world’s richest person is taking philanthropy more seriously.
The Musk Foundation in the past couple of years has made eight-figure grants to the city and local school system near his South Texas spaceport, a $100 million ready-made competition to fight climate change and millions of dollars to a pair of Covid-19 researchers.
Almost all of those recipients have been primarily working with Igor Kurganov, a professional poker player-turned-philanthropist, who Musk has recently enlisted to keep in contact with grantees and consider their proposals.
Kurganov is the co-founder of Raising for Effective Giving, an organization created by a group of poker players that recommends “highly cost-effective charities.” He’s also an adviser to the Forethought Foundation, a project by the Centre for Effective Altruism.
Kurganov, as far as I understand, is one of the sharpest minds out there and perfect for this sort of job. Deciding where billions of dollars can go is no small task, but from everything I know about him and from what poker Twitter is saying about him, he's more or less a genius and the person you want in this role.
The second thing to talk about in this blog is the below:
I'm not an Elon Musk fanboy. I generally avoid following the day to day of him, Rogan, etc. Just have zero interest and their fans are so hardcore that it's more of a headache than anything. But the other side? Just as bad. Elon cannot do a single thing without his haters going bananas on him. He just gave 5.7 BILLION DOLLARS TO CHARITY and what do people say? "Herp derp, it's to avoid paying taxes, herp derp".
Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
You go ahead and give $5.7 billion of your fortune to charity and see if you have more or less money in your bank account afterwards. Plus, we see what our government does with our tax money, so are we really that distressed he is going to give his money out himself than trust the idiots we elect instead? Oh shit, we won't get another plane to bomb a starving 3rd world village, the horror!
People will never be happy. There's zero proof it's a "fake charity". In fact, based on the first point of this blog, that Kurganov is running it, the charity seems extremely real. The issue people have though is they know Elon give a ton to charity, but he doesn't talk about where it goes.
Musk doesn’t regularly publicize his gifts and tax documents that provide such disclosures have a years-long delay. What Musk has shared recently includes $10 million to Brownsville, Texas, near where SpaceX is located, to revitalize its downtown. So far, that money has gone to a grants program for local property owners, lighting projects and murals.
The gift likely went to Musk’s foundation, said Brian Mittendorf, an Ohio State University professor who studies nonprofits. Given Musk’s previous use of donor-advised funds, or DAFs, the public might never know where much of the money is going unless he chooses to share it on Twitter or the Musk Foundation’s website, he said.
“We shouldn’t have to play this guessing game,” said Benjamin Soskis, senior research associate at the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute. “It’s a matter of public interest where the money is going because the scale is so large.”
I get that side of it, people are interested in where the $5.7 billion goes. But we have to understand Elon is very annoying and the more people want him to be public about it, the more he won't tell. That's just who he is.
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I find the entire world of billionaires to be fascinating. Everyone says "Elon could wake up this morning and solve world hunger". Him, Zuck, Gates, etc. But people disregard there are levels to all of that. I don't want to get too conspiracy theory in here, but I believe there are reasons so above what our heads can even comprehend why they can't do this. Side effects that would change the course of human history. I'm talking Illuminati type shit. I could talk about this type of thing forever- there HAVE to be bigger reasons these bazillionaires don't do certain things. Just have to.
Anyway, if I'm wrong and Elon truly is a POS and has zero intentions of donating this nearly $6 billion to anything, than he's probably the biggest scumbag to ever walk the planet. But I'm right now willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and say Igor will put the money to good use. We shall wait and see.