Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, recently challenged the World Food Programme (WFP) to construct a plan to solve world hunger, re-igniting a public debate about the responsibility of billionaires to help the planet.
The WFP is an offshoot of the United Nations and is directed by David Beasley, former Governor of South Carolina and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A CNN slip-up sparked a Twitter confrontation between Musk and Beasley, resulting in slight confusion about an exaggerated headline.
An Oct. 26 article by CNN falsely quoted Beasley saying $6.6 billion, roughly 2 percent of Musk’s wealth, could solve world hunger. This statement is incorrect, and the article has now been updated to say that 2 percent of Musk’s wealth could help solve world hunger.
However, before this update could be published, Israeli Artificial Intelligence expert Dr. Eli David tweeted that the WFP raised $8.4 billion in 2020, yet they had not solved world hunger, calling into question the $6.6 billion figure used by the CNN article.Musk latched onto David’s tweet, asking the WFP to describe how $6 billion would cure world hunger. Musk also wrote that if the WFP could provide a plan, he would sell off the necessary $6 billion in Tesla stock immediately.
Beasley jumped into the Twitter thread to correct the misquote and offered to explain to Musk exactly how the $6 billion would be spent. He also offered a breakdown of where the $6 billion figure came from. Beasley’s main point was that the $6.6 billion would go towards helping the roughly 42 million people who are at serious risk for famine as a result of wars, COVID-19 and climate crises. The most affected regions are South and West Africa, constituting about 20 million out of the 42 million affected.
On the Twitter thread, Beasley provided a link to the WFP website which further explained the food crisis that he is specifically focused on right now. According to the WFP, which operates completely off of donations, 282.7 million people are experiencing extreme levels of acute hunger, but 42 million of them are on the brink of famine. This is the group that the WFP hopes to help with a donation from Musk.
During a Nov. 5 radio interview with CBS News Radio, Beasley clarified his request. “We need the help of billionaires who have made so much money during COVID – unprecedented wealth – this is a one-time ask…Please help us save little girls and little boys,” Beasely said.
Musk, who recently claimed the title for the richest man of all time, has seen his fortune sky-rocket in recent years. According to Forbes, Musk has seen his net worth balloon tenfold since 2019. Tesla has seen its stock jump more than 50 percent in the past month, putting Musk’s worth over $318 billion as of Nov. 7 due to his 23% stake in the company. At the rate his net worth is progressing, a $6.6 billion donation seems like a relative drop in the bucket for Musk.
Senior Matthew Bender has followed Musk for years. Although he is a fan of the technological advancements of Tesla and SpaceX, he remains cautiously optimistic about Musk donating to the WFP. “I do think he would [donate], because he usually does what he says he will, but I also think there’s a pretty significant chance he claims the UN is corrupt and would waste his money,” he said.
While it remains to be seen whether Musk agrees to address the pleas of Beasley, his response to David’s tweet undoubtably toyed with the idea of massive philanthropy, adding fuel to the age-old debate of whether billionaires should contribute more of their wealth to global prosperity.
Recently, Forbes published its list of the 400 richest Americans, and while the net worth of the group grew 40% (to $4.5 trillion) from 2020, their philanthropic contributions did not follow suit. However, this year the leader of the Forbes 400, Jeff Bezos, pledged $10 billion to the Bezos Earth Fund in order to prevent, stop, and reverse climate change.
While many believe that billionaires should owe more in taxes and ought to part ways with the wealth they’ve amassed, time will tell whether the government or global need will drive billionaires to contribute to solving the world’s problems.
