“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.”
That was Tesla CEO Elon Musk responding to criticism that he should give away more of his money to charity. As the head of one of the world’s most valuable companies and one of the richest men in the world, Musk has been under pressure to use his immense personal resources to help solve some of humanity's most pressing problems. The World Food Programme, on Twitter, responded with a detailed breakdown of exactly how the money would be spent, but Musk has yet to take them up on it.
Musk has instead been engaged in what has been called “troll philanthropy”. Rather than using his fortune to court public opinion, he “…seems to enjoy using his identity as a philanthropist in part to antagonize the public,” said Benjamin Sorkis of the Urban Institute. The Musk Foundation’s spare (and actual) website is case in point.
Tech executives in particular are more reluctant to shell out, often viewing their work—connecting people, increasing access to knowledge, providing financial services, or in Musk’s case, advancing renewable energy technology—as a contribution in itself. Noam Cohen of Business Insider writes that a longtime acquaintance of Musk described him as “‘a humanist—not in the sense of being a nice person, because he isn't.’ His humanism, instead, is defined as doing the best for ‘humanity’ by pursuing his personal vision on our behalf. In other words, it is the type of humanism that takes advantage of the social policies, people, and institutions that made pursuing his personal vision possible in the first place without contributing back.”
Barack Obama famously campaigned against such brazenness using the phrase “You didn’t build that!” In a democracy, he argued, no one is entirely self-made. Extreme wealth comes not just from hard work, but also from the use of roads, bridges, electric grids, and an education system paid for or subsidized by taxpayers. The federal treasury backs up the value of currency and the SEC regulates dubious trading of stocks, including Tesla’s. No doubt Musk would expect the fire department to respond should a lithium battery start a blaze at one of his plants. Contributing a greater share in taxes, Obama said, is paying back those debts to society.
Examples from history can be instructive.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was the heir and only son of John D. Rockefeller, oil magnate and one of the richest people of his time. Aside from holdings in New York City and the Hudson Valley, the family also owned an estate in Forest Hill, Ohio, which included rolling hills and woods that lent the young John a “passionate awareness of the outdoor world”. When, like many wealthy families in the late 19th century, the Rockefellers escaped the heat and confines of the city to summer in Bar Harbor, Maine, he quickly fell in love with the area’s windswept peaks and rocky coast. After graduating from Brown University and briefly working in his father’s business, he decided to devote his life to philanthropy, adopting and advocating for causes of all stripes.
One cause for which Rockefeller was most passionate was conservation, relentlessly taking his own family on tours of the National Parks, which he regarded as every American’s inheritance. Upon returning to Bar Harbor, though, Rockefeller was dismayed that his beloved Mount Desert was increasingly being overrun by cottages and hotels catering to the wealthy. He responded by coordinating with locals to buy up 11,000 acres of land surrounding his family’s summer home and the most desirable remaining locations on the island, donating it all to the federal government. He designed and oversaw the construction of an elaborate system of carriage roads and stone bridges from which the island’s beauty could be observed, and remain, motor-free. Finally, he succeeded in lobbying for the creation of a National Monument and later Acadia National Park, the first east of the Mississippi, to preserve it in its natural condition.
While on a tour of Yellowstone and Grand Teton, Rockefeller spoke with park superintendent Horace Albright, who expounded to him his own passion—wildlife. Albright convinced Rockefeller of the need for not only beautiful scenery, but also for the land necessary to maintain the health and ecology of the park’s iconic species. Though Yellowstone was protected, the migration routes of its elk, bison, and wolves were not. Rockefeller secretly began buying up more than 35,000 acres in the Snake River Valley, eventually donating it all to the Park Service and, with the addition of Jackson Hole National Monument, effectively doubling the size of Grand Teton Nation Park.
Back in the east, efforts were underway to protect the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee from rapacious clearing by loggers. Congress authorized the creation of a National Park in the area, but there was no core of protected land around which to establish it and no federal support spearheading it. Local organizers took it upon themselves to raise the money to buy the land, enlisting schoolchildren, churchgoers, shopkeepers, and ordinary folks to donate. They had nearly reached their goal when the Great Depression stepped in and efforts stalled. Money was withdrawn. When Rockefeller learned of their plight, he pledged the remaining five million dollars to buy the land before the timber companies could harvest it, saving the last stands of old growth forest that became part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
In his lifetime Rockefeller gave over $537 million to various causes. He donated land to Shenandoah National Park. He financed museums in Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Yellowstone. He donated two million dollars to save 15,000 acres of forest near Yosemite, including the largest remaining tract of old growth coast redwoods. He supported the League of Nations, established the Bureau of Social Hygiene, which addressed public health needs such as disease and birth control, donated property for the site of the Museum of Modern Art, funded the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, and supported Protestant and Baptist institutions. “Conservation”, he said, “is humanity caring for the future.”
For a long time, the climate movement has hopefully (or hopelessly) embraced the idea that the average person doing small things to reduce their carbon footprint—recycling, riding a bike, turning off the lights—can make a difference, while being largely impotent against the real problem, large-scale agricultural and industrial emitters. Experts have made it clear that this is our last chance to make huge national investments in climate preparedness and resiliency to prevent devastating future disruptions. Imagine what $6 billion—or $600 billion—could do.
If he really wants to pioneer the future, Musk and those like him should be directly funding large-scale climate resiliency projects such as levees, storm gates, water treatment plants, coastal restoration, and nuclear power. With the best case scenarios now off the table and governments across the world hobbled by partisan acrimony and ineptitude, direct giving by the wealthiest may be our last viable option. “The idea that philanthropy, that any single individual, has enough money to affect something at a global scale is a very new phenomenon”, said Homi Kharas of the Brookings Institution. “[Billionaires] have accumulated their wealth because the world economy is now globalized, but to sustain a globalized world economy we need to have inclusive growth.”
To me inclusive growth means not leaving people behind. If the “billionaire space race” of 2021 taught us anything, though, it’s that the Bransons, Bezoses, and Musks of the world seem quite content to do just that. Civil unrest? Live in a gated compound. Sea level rise? Board the mega-yacht. Earth uninhabitable? Terraform Mars.
On a tablet facing Rockefeller Center in Manhattan is inscribed a principle that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. lived by:
I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.
I was unaware of John D.'s contributions. $6 billion could do a lot of good.