This is evidenced by his twitter response to the call of the UN Food Food Program, which called for rich people around the world to ask for more help from the hungry. When the UN unveils a plan to eradicate hunger from planet earth, Musk reportedly sells Tesla’s shares immediately and gives the UN $ 6 billion.
A billionaire’s fury, ridicule, or arrogance?
Musk’s light is, at the very least, a bit out of place, realizing that the money in the food program mainly helps starving children. And to build a UN $ 8 billion a year UN program that does what it can (and rightly so) he also received the Nobel Peace Prize) is a bit of a fallen game.
If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2021
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Musk certainly did not want to say that funding such a program is a waste of money. He just wanted to point out that money against hunger on the planet is not enough on its own. The causes of famines are not just in adverse weather conditions or climate change at all. They are also involved in the social organization of individual states, corruption and the distribution of aid.
But it is only possible to talk about all this when the money for help is in reserve and they can work. And somehow it’s not happening. Although the world is so rich that no one needs to starve.
Musek’s distrust of the work of the UN may be understandable, because all the world’s major campaigns always run into thousands of problems …
The paradox of misunderstanding
Elon Musk, one of today’s greatest visionaries, has reviewed the “Stop Hunger” project, Make Hunger History, as a desperate modern utopia and would rather continue to give money to an apparently much more realistic connection between man and artificial intelligence. Or for space travel.
It is certainly a billionaire’s choice where to put his money. From the point of view of implementation, however, Musek’s projects are perhaps an even greater utopia than the idea that for six billion of his tesladollars we will erase poverty from the face of the earth. Musk seems to fly high above the ground or travel through time immediately than to deal with such mundane problems as the diet of malnourished African children.
It is a strange paradox, because Elon Musk is also a signatory to the challenge The Giving Pledge (Promise to give). Since 2010, together with more than two hundred billionaires and billionaire families of the world, it has promised half of its assets for philanthropic purposes at the instigation of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. So you definitely can’t say he’s sitting on money.
Musek’s distrust of the work of the UN may be understandable, because all the world’s major campaigns always run into thousands of problems. So sometimes the money goes to the place for a really long time.
This was also true in the campaign Make Poverty History, Let’s send poverty into the past, which in 2005 also looked more like a media show of some VIP faces, from Bon Vox to Nelson Mandela. Yet ten years later, billions of debt have been forgiven and the share of people receiving a dollar a day has halved in the world.
It is therefore more of a misunderstanding in communication on social networks (see box Musk versus OSN higher) than for refusing assistance. A slightly tabloid affair, thanks to which, however, the important context of modern philanthropy is revealed, in which more and more enormously rich people claim social responsibility.
Philanthropy alone will not correct all social injustice, but it can stimulate goodwill …
The promise of a gift in practice
Not only because it makes them an advertisement and a nice public face, but also because they want something themselves. Because otherwise the unimaginable sums of money would seem pointless to them. The example of Bill Gates, who helped eradicate malaria and tuberculosis and in recent years supports the electrification of backward places in Africa, is no longer the only one.
Just look at the website The Giving Pledge, where you will find people from Michael Bloomberg to Mark Zuckerberg. They all undertake to devote at least half of their money to philanthropic activities during their lifetime or after death, in particular to solve the “most pressing problems of society,” as stated in the commitment or oath. And Musk is on this list.
It is all the more surprising that he did not consider the fight against hunger to be highly necessary and preferred to devote himself to a semiological analysis of the statement about the definitive eradication of hunger.
A few billion will certainly not make it forever, Musk is right. But for him, what another American billionaire on the list, founder and owner of Arthur Blank’s extensive Home Depot store network, said about philanthropy: “Philanthropy alone will not fix all the social injustice in our country or in the world. But it can stimulate goodwill, drive innovation and provide thoughtful leadership. ”
Vise with Smoljak in the movie Jáchyme, throw him in the machine! they say ironically and succinctly: “It doesn’t have to rain just when it’s dripping”
Since antiquity in various variations, the ideal expression of the relationship with others is the middle way, “reasonable generosity.”
Distribute to others
With Musk’s twitter truce, the question of the degree of donation and sharing of the acquired wealth also came to life. Is half the property too much or just? Or is one and a half billion crowns enough for twenty-five years of philanthropic activity, as shown, for example, by the company of the richest family in the Czech Republic, the PPF family of the Kellner family, whose assets exceed 200 billion?
One should not be greedy, but one should not throw so that one does not come to the drum. Therefore, since antiquity, it has been true in various variations that the ideal expression of the relationship with others is the middle way, “reasonable generosity.” Of course, it is fulfilled differently and with different demands when you have twenty thousand crowns in your account, and differently when hundreds of billions of dollars are spent through your accounts.
The center – which is not an arithmetic average, but a condition of a blissful life and good dying – must ultimately be found by everyone.
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