Elon Musk is firmly the world's richest man with a net worth of US$839 billion. However, his investment in charity has been at a low level for a long time, and he was ranked first among the world's "least charitable" billionaires by Forbes. A recently released report on wealthy people’s donations by Forbes shows that Musk has donated approximately US$500 million directly to groups in need, accounting for only 0.06% of his public net worth, which is equivalent to only 60 cents of every US$1,000 of assets being used for charity.
The assessment only counts traceable actual cash expenditures and does not include asset transfers between enterprises.
Musk once transferred approximately US$8.5 billion in Tesla stock to his personal foundation, which seemed generous, but was actually questioned as a tax planning method.
Donating appreciated stocks can not only avoid capital gains tax, but also allow him to control the use and investment time of the funds. It is not really used for public welfare.
What is even more controversial is that its foundation has not met the legal requirement of 5% of annual public welfare expenditures for private foundations in the United States for many years. The accumulation of funds is much faster than the actual investment, deviating from the original intention of public welfare.
Previous market predictions were that if Musk completes Tesla’s performance and job requirements, his net worth may reach US$8.5 trillion within ten years, and he is expected to become the world’s first trillionaire.
On the one hand, the expectation of a trillion-yuan wealth, on the other hand, the extremely low charitable investment has aroused strong public dissatisfaction. Many people criticized him for sitting on a huge wealth but being unwilling to assume social responsibilities. The funds could have been used in public welfare areas such as famine relief and ecological protection.
Faced with accusations, Musk argued that assets are mostly tied up in companies and used for long-term scientific and technological projects such as space exploration, but this cannot explain the opacity and low scale of charitable donations.
