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Actor Daniel Craig has signed a $ 100 million contract, but does not plan to spend it on his daughters. PHOTO: Photos: Reuters
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Or why more and more millionaires are depriving their children of their inheritance
Isn’t there an old saying that if you die a rich man, you fail. With these words, Daniel Craig welcomed the news that he tops the charts of the highest paid actors in Hollywood. Although the premiere of his latest James Bond film was delayed by 18 months due to the pandemic, the 53-year-old actor managed to make another expensive role in the Netflix series. Craig is said to have signed a $ 100 million contract to star in two sequels to Take Out the Knives and will no longer play the role of Agent 007, who brought him worldwide fame.
Thus, his fortune has already reached 160 million dollars, which seems to create slight worries for the actor and he is about to join the club of millionaires who do not intend to bequeath the wealth of their children. “I find it disgusting, and my philosophy is to get rid of it or give it away before I leave this world,” Craig said in an interview with Candis magazine. He is the father of two girls. He has a 29-year-old daughter from his relationship with actress Fiona Ludon, and a two-year-old daughter from his current wife Rachel Weiss. However, the father does not want to leave them large sums.
He says he was inspired by the decision of renowned businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who donated 90 percent of his billions to charity, libraries and concert halls before he died in 1919. He believes the rich have a moral duty. to help create things useful to society is shared by other wealthy entrepreneurs later. In addition, in recent years, it has become noticeable that all the leaders of some rankings for wealth, very quickly declare their intention not to leave it only to their children, as most people do. The reason is that these are usually people who have built their own business empire thanks to personal qualities and ambitions and want to see a similar successful formula in their heirs, and not just fill their bank accounts, providing them with a trouble-free life.
For example, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan announced at the birth of their first daughter that they would donate the proceeds of 99% of the shares they held in the company throughout their lives. The 37-year-old founder of the social network has permanently settled in the top ten richest people in the world, claiming that his fortune reached $ 100 billion during the pandemic, when Facebook became one of the main sources of communication. Zuckerberg created the social network while still a student at Harvard. Therefore, he and his wife believe that every child should have a chance in life and decide to fund various charitable projects to develop human potential and achieve equality.
“Leaving a huge amount to your children is a disservice. They need to find their own way to earn their own way. A huge legacy is more likely to become an obstacle, ”explains Bill Gates, who is the second richest man in the world according to Forbes magazine. Even before he divorced his wife, the founder of Microsoft decided to bequeath only a small part of his wealth of over $ 100 billion to his three children and all the money saved to go to charity projects of the family foundation “Bill and Melinda Gates” ”. He is said to have left them $ 10 million to get an excellent education and start-up capital if they decide to start their own business.
The heirs of another great star of the information technology revolution are also deprived of billions. Apple founder Steve Jobs did not specify what exactly his four children would receive before he died in 2011, but his wife recently revealed that it would not be much. Widow Lauren Powell Jobs, a well-known philanthropist, said she was not interested in increasing wealth from generation to generation. “Steve didn’t want that. If I live long enough, it’s all over with me, “said Lauren, who has a foundation to fight social inequality. According to her, a situation in which a small group of people controls a significant amount of money is wrong and unfair. “We saw this at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries with the Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford families. Such accumulation of wealth is dangerous for society. It shouldn’t exist, “said Steve Jobs’ wife, who inherited $ 27 billion from him.
Singer Elton John shares the same principle. He and his partner David Furnish are the parents of two boys born to a surrogate mother. Their fortune is estimated at over $ 400 million, but their sons will not inherit it all. “Of course, I want my children to live in luxury, but I am against getting everything ready. I think that spoils them “, the English singer thinks.
His compatriot and chef Gordon Ramsey, who has five children and $ 190 million, is even more extreme about how his heirs will spend his money. He once learns that one of his daughters flew in first class from New York to London and raises a crazy scandal. The “revelation” happened by accident, as Tilly happily shared that she was sitting next to Jennifer Lopez. This infuriates the father, who forbade his children to fly in first grade until they could make their own money. For me, the most important thing is that they stay on the ground, says Ramsey. He is a former football player raised in a municipal apartment and has been forced to earn a living since he was a child. He wants to teach his children to be like that. He and his wife decided to help them buy a house, but gave them only 25% of the amount needed for it. They plan to donate the rest of their savings to tackle poverty.
There are courses to deal with the burden of money
Even though it seems very inspiring for famous people to spend their millions on charity and not on their children, a British study shows that 75% of family fortunes are passed on to the next generation. This leads to the creation of a class much more privileged and separate from the rest of humanity. The children of millionaires generally live longer, study in the best schools, earn more and break away from the way of life that other people lead.
The care for them is so serious that a global consulting business has developed to prepare them how best to bear the burden of wealth. Some of the courses start at the age of 5 through board and role-playing games, during which the child learns more about the heritage. Fees for such activities are serious. In the United States, for example, the annual training of a millionaire heir costs about $ 200,000. It includes sessions with a family history specialist and two wealth dynamics coaches.
Their task is to prevent all possible negative effects of a lot of money and unwanted defects in communication between members of the rich family.
Michael Cole, who is the director of a company with such a consulting business, says that their aim is to disprove a certain saying, which turns out to exist in many languages and generally has the following meaning – the first generation accumulates wealth, the second lives life and spends the money, and the third wastes it and finally returns to poverty. In English it sounds – from wooden slippers to wooden slippers, and in Japanese – from a bowl of rice to a bowl of rice a day.
“Success is easy. It is a process that requires you to do things every day that bring you closer to realizing your dreams and achieving your goals. Part of this is reading for at least 30 minutes every day for educational purposes only. If you ignore one component, the whole process falls apart, “said Thomas Corley, author of books on the habits of the rich.
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