He seems to prefer to use his philanthropic identity against the public.
Musk hosts Saturday Night Live (SNL). Figure/SNL
On February 14, the "forced donation" tug-of-war between the United Nations and Musk made new progress.
Documents released by the SEC that night show that Musk donated about 5.04 million shares to an unknown charity from November 19 to November 29 last year. Tesla's stock price is worth about $5.7 billion in the month it was donated.
Some speculate that Musk actually delivered on his promise and donated a sum of money to the United Nations.
However, David Beasley, director of the U.N. World Food Programme, said in an interview that WFP had not yet received the money. "Whether we will receive the money remains to be seen, but I am very happy to hear that Elon will be involved." Beasley said in the statement.
The whereabouts of the money remain unknown. There are two more mainstream speculations: that the money may have fallen into the Donor Development Fund (DAF), which resembles a charitable bank account, where the donor can hold the money temporarily and does not have to disclose the specific recipient and amount in the future; or that he may donate the money to his own foundation.
In both cases, Musk can get the benefits of tax avoidance, a possible purpose that has made many people take a wait-and-see attitude towards his donation. However, these are just speculations, and Musk has not made any response.
On Feb. 14, documents released by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that night showed that Musk donated about 5.04 million shares to an unknown charity from November 19 to November 29 last year.
Atypical rich
This world-renowned "forced donation" drama occurred four months ago.
On October 26 last year, Beasley mentioned in an interview with us media that billionaires such as Elon Musk should come up with assets to support global action to end hunger. He said Musk could help 42 million people solve their livelihood problems with just 2 percent of his assets (about $6 billion).
Four days after reports of donations, Eli Davy, CTO of Deep Instinct, a cybersecurity firm, tweeted a screenshot of the news. "For the full year of 2020, the United Nations World Food Programme raised a total of $8.4 billion. How can Musk's $6 billion not solve the problem? ”
In 2019, Musk subscribed to 1 million trees for the "TeamTrees" public welfare project for $1 million. Photo/ TeamTrees
Musk hit back in the comments section the next day: "If WFP can explain in detail how the $6 billion solves the world famine problem under this tweet, I will immediately sell Tesla stock and donate money." "And it has to be open and transparent, and everybody has to be able to see how the money is spent." He added.
Half a month after the air shouting, Beasley tweeted Ait Musk again, with a link to the article "THE UNITED Nations Food Programme appeals to billionaires around the world to donate $6.6 billion on its official website", including a detailed plan for the use of donations. But Musk temporarily withdrew from the battlefield and did not speak again. In the original Tweet comment section, a user left a message saying that "Musk doesn't see any willingness to donate, he just wants to show that he is more resourceful than the United Nations that shouted donations."
Musk is an atypical billionaire.
A perusal of his tweets reveals that he is not the serious and discreet image of a philanthropist imagined. He often publishes love packs and memes, will scare people on the Internet, and from time to time there are nonsensical speeches and cold jokes.
Acting in the sketch, he ridiculed himself as a bionic person, saying that his "tone is not depressed, and I heard that this feature is very suitable for comedy." Musk even tweeted the "Seven Steps Poem", saying that humans have been doing the "boiling beans and burning beans" thing. This has sparked a lot of discussion on social media — probably no one thought that Musk would throw out a Chinese poem out of the ordinary way and let English users ponder its meaning.
Pictured is a child with cancer at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. In 2021, Musk donated $55 million to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Photo/ St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
The industry generally believes that most rich people will establish a good image for themselves by doing charity, but Musk does not seem to be so. Benjamin Soskis, a senior fellow at the Center for Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, a think tank, describes his style as "devil's charity" — "he seems less concerned with currying favor with his philanthropy." In fact, he seems to prefer to use his philanthropic status against the public. ”
It is also good and evil
Musk is not a dime ahead in philanthropy, but the gesture he has taken is rather unconventional.
In 2007, Elon Musk and his brother Kimball Musk founded the Musk Foundation. The foundation's website looks like a simple memo without any design and typography.
Seven lines in black on a white background: "Musk Foundation." The Foundation was established to support: renewable energy research and initiatives, human space exploration research and initiatives, pediatric medical research, science and engineering education, and the development of safe artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. ”
The homepage of the Musk Foundation website has only seven lines, no typography design, and no links for jumping.
This is probably the most outrageous charity foundation website ever. There is no organizational structure information, fund disclosure information, or news dissemination content of the foundation. Of course, this means that it is difficult to fulfill its mission as a transparent information disclosure platform; but functional aside, this site has the style of Musk himself — no redundancy, efficiency, humor and cynicism.
Musk's colleague Matthews Estavo commented that he would focus on how a sum of money can really drive a field, rather than making the process look shiny. Time magazine mentioned that although Musk is happy to show off his high-tech products and equipment, he is relatively low-key in the field of charity and does not like to publicize it.
His own foundation, founded in 2002; he signed bill gates and Warren Buffett's "pledge" back in 2012, pledging to give half of his wealth; and the Guardian reported that Musk's foundation donated $54 million between 2010 and 2017, with more than a third of the money going to 160 charities, including many environmental, educational, medical and space advocacy groups.
On December 13, 2021, Time magazine announced the Person of the Year, and it was Musk on the cover. "Clowns, geniuses, visionaries, Internet surfers, industrialists, entertainers, cynics", the article lists a long list of words, stacking a musk "good and evil" image.
Musk was named Time Magazine's 2021 Person of the Year.
Change the maker
The "Forced Donation" series is just a small episode, and Musk's understanding of charity is not only equivalent to donations. On many occasions, he has expressed his ambition to change the scene of human life, and in his context, promoting technological change and triggering changes in social lifestyles and cognition also has the meaning of "charity".
In 2017, Musk announced the creation of The Boring Company ("boring" also means drilling in English) with the goal of improving the city's transportation system and intending to dig tunnels underground.
The final form of the "Vegas Loop" tunnel was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on February 14, taking over the ferry work of the various exhibition halls of the show. The tunnel is not used by subways or private cars, but for Tesla cars, and passengers only need to take the elevator down to the waiting hall and wait for the car to arrive at the station to get on the bus.
The "Vegas Loop" tunnel at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show on Feb. 14.
Musk's ultimate vision for this tunnel system is to replace the current "two-dimensional traffic" with "3D", using the depth of the underground to make a 20-story or even 30-story tunnel to alleviate the traffic pressure on the road surface.
In addition to the innovation he practices, Musk also hopes to explore more innovative solutions to drive more changes. In recent years, Musk's philanthropy has focused on an interesting project: XPRIZE, founded in 1995.
The organization sets up multiple competition units to solve the challenges facing humanity, supporting and encouraging scientific and technological innovation projects through the provision of prize money by philanthropists and institutions. In 2021, XPRIZE announced that Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation had donated $100 million to set up the XPRIZE Carbon Removal Project, which aims to find new solutions to combat climate change and rebalance the planet's carbon cycle.
Musk's philanthropy focuses on an interesting project: XPRIZE, founded in 1995.
"We want to have a truly meaningful impact, to pursue carbon negativity, not carbon neutrality ... Hopefully, the team will be able to build a real system that produces measurable impact and scales to the billion-ton scale. At all costs, time is of the essence. Musk said. It is also the highest prize money in XPRIZE's history since its inception.
The project is officially launched on April 22, 2021 World Earth Day, and the application period will continue until 2025, and the final grand prize winner will receive a prize of $50 million.
The industry's hope of finding a new way out of environmental problems has also been placed on the technological innovation team represented by Musk and XPRIZE. Environmental columnist Thomas Friedman affirmed Musk's innovation path: "We need more Greta Thunberg and more Elon Musk. That is, more adventurous innovators are needed to transform basic science into unimagined tools to protect the planet for a generation yet to be born. ”
On April 19, 2021, the Musk Foundation donated $400,000 to IDEA Public Schools in South Texas to strengthen science education programs. Photo: IDEAschools
Tesla's products themselves are built on environmental awareness, and Musk and Tesla are also environmental beneficiaries. In 2021, Tesla generated a total of $518 million in revenue through the sale of carbon credits.
On May 13 last year, Musk, who has always promoted Bitcoin and Dogecoin, announced on Twitter that Tesla would suspend the use of Bitcoin to buy cars. "We are concerned that bitcoin mining transactions will lead to a rapid growth in the consumption of fossil fuels, especially coal." Musk explained.
For such a rebellious "bad boy", no one knows what amazing moves he will take next.
Photo editor: Zhang Xu
Duty Editor: Wan Xiaojun