When it comes to Elon Musk, he never stops surprising and impressing the world. Be his leadership style, his tweets that make wall street dance to his tune, or being extremely generous, Elon Musk is one of those few ones who know how to attract eyeballs in style. This time it’s all about donating an eye-popping amount that left many stunned. Elon Musk reportedly gave away $6.5 billion worth of Tesla’s stocks to charity in November last year.
The world’s wealthiest man reportedly donated over 5 million shares of the electric automaker in the last 10 days of November, according to Bloomberg citing a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, the value worth of the total donated shares was $5.7 billion according to the average price on the day he gave away the shares, making it one of the largest donations donated to charity ever. The transaction was executed through an unidentified trust as the name of that trust was not mentioned in the documents.
The charity was done at the time when Elon Musk, CEO – Tesla Inc., was in disagreement with politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren about inequality and a possible wealth tax. At the exact same time, Musk also took the whole world by expressing that possibility of a bigger donation is also possible from his side if the United Nations could come out with a detailed plan about the donated funds would be used and channelized. The statement was made after the chief of the food aid arm of the UN took a dig at billionaires by suggesting that he should “step up immediately in a single-time manner.”
A major donation to charity in the past year could aid in reducing the amount that Musk said would be the largest tax bill to be paid in U.S. history. In December, media company Bloomberg estimated that Musk might owe more than $10 billion to IRS (Internal Revenue Service).
Musk has a foundation named after him that has grown more active in recent years. It made a massive eight-figure grant to the city that is close to the South Texas spaceport, a $100 million carbon removal, and $5 million to two researchers for research on Covid-19. Prior to that his foundation’s most significant contributions came from donor-advised funds (DAFs) where donations to charities can be deposited in perpetuity.
The Musk Foundation that used to have Kimbal, the brother of Musk Kimbal as a director has recently added another person to its board. Bloomberg has confirmed that the primary point of contact at the foundation is Igor Kurganov, a professional poker player-turned-philanthropist who is active in the effective altruism space.
All said and done, Elon Musk’s donation is not as big as many were expecting considering the amount of tax benefits he enjoys every year. People have criticized Musk, along with a few other billionaires including Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, who pay peanuts despite pocketing billions of dollars every year. Elon Musk paid only $68,000 in 2015, $65,000 in 2017, but didn’t pay anything in 2017 despite his net worth ballooning with each passing year.
Whatever be the case, the charity of nearly $6.5 billion (as of today stock value of Tesla) is no small deal. For any billionaire, it’s a significant amount of money and for Musk it’s 3% of his total net-worth which is estimated $242 billion by Forbes.
