Billion-Dollar Charity: After Promising To Donate Half Of His Fortune, Here Is Elon Musk's Progress So Far
The ever-growing success as Tesla's leading man has no doubt brought Elon Musk a seemingly boundless fortune. Along with providing some of the most groundbreaking vehicular advances of our time, the famed billionaire is also setting out to change the face of mankind entirely by sending humans to Mars.
The now richest man in the world is quite often the subject of headlines. This month, he made news after speaking up on the Chinese ban on cryptocurrency and separating from his former girlfriend, pop sensation Grimes. But, among the hoopla of business and personal affairs swarming throughout Twitter posts and threads, there's one aspect of the billionaire's life that often gets overlooked: his charitable contributions.
When Musk joined his powerful peers such as Warren Buffet and Michael Bloomberg in signing the 2012 Giving Pledge, he vowed to donate half of his wealth towards charitable organizations throughout his lifetime. So how well is he keeping up on his promise?
The brazen businessman didn't up and started giving back just because he signed the Giving Pledge. In fact, Musk began his journey towards philanthropy all the way back in 2002 when he and his brother, Kimbal, launched the Musk Foundation. Over the past decade, Musk has used this foundation to funnel millions of dollars into a wide array of causes. While most fall into the category of furthering scientific research and educational enhancement, there are a few outliers here and there.
Going to the official Musk Foundation website, you'd be left in befuddlement as you'd be met with a practically blank white page. A mere summary is all the page entails, reading, "Grants are made in support of: Renewable energy research and advocacy, Human space exploration research and advocacy, Pediatric research, Science and engineering education, Development of safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity."
The foundation certainly has put a great deal of money into these sorts of initiatives, for example, giving $8,750 to the University of California to further its research of neurosurgery. Though, donations go far beyond the perimeters mentioned on the website. For instance, $2,500 was granted to the Transgender Law Center in 2011. The next year, the Los Angeles Police Foundation received $10,000 from Musk's organization.
The most recent donation made by the Musk Foundation went to helping impoverished citizens in Brownsville, Texas. On September 29th, it was announced that the foundation gifted nonprofit organization, Good Neighbor Settlement with $200,000. The funds will greatly contribute to helping the organization renovate its facilities, ushering in a new cafeteria and kitchen to help them feed and house the growing influx of Brownsville citizens hurt by the pandemic.
While most of Musk's business ventures and charitable contributions get a decent amount of publicity, there's one endeavor that's been kept in the shadows: Ad Astra. Out of all the projects funded by his foundation, this mysterious project leaves the most to be desired in regards to clear information.
Co-founded by the billionaire in 2014, Ad Astra was an extremely exclusive private school housed on the Space X campus, according to Forbes. Very little is known about the school itself, other than the fact that it took a very alternative approach towards education. It's believed that the school was established to provide education for Space X employees (including a handful of Musk's very own children). It was far from your regular private school as the curriculum was said to greatly entail coding, AI, and applied science. Making the school fall even farther off the beaten path, Ad Astra omitted traditional subjects and activities like sports and music.
The school didn't last long, as classes ended indefinitely by 2018. The official website for the school now showcases a blank background with a caption that read, 'This site is currently private'.
Undoubtedly, one of Musk's most shining achievements was sending four lucky travelers into space last month. Much like when Bezos accompanied his triumphant space journey with a $200 million donation to the Smithsonian, Musk decided to celebrate by giving back.
Inspiration4's historic trip as Space X's first civilian passengers was sponsored by Jared Isaacman in order to raise $200 million for St Jude's Children's Hospital (Isaacman ended up making his own $100 million donations). When the mission's official Twitter announced that the passengers had safely made it back onto the ground, Musk made it clear that he was more than willing to open up his own pocketbook to support the cause. He took to Twitter to pledge $50 million towards St. Jude.
As the richest man in the whole world, giving up half your wealth is quite the task - not by greed, but by simple practically. When he signed the Giving Pledge back in 2012, his net worth stood at around $2 billion. Today, he inches closer and closer towards the $200 billion benchmark! So we'll just have to see later down the line whether or not he can truly stick to his promise.
Sources: Quartz, Valley Central, Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Guardian
from TheRichest - Feed https://ift.tt/3monlvx
Post a Comment