Elon Musk says he will sell $6 billion worth of Tesla stock and donate the proceeds to the United Nations if it can show how the money would solve world hunger.
Global (02 November 2021) – The world’s richest man says that he will sell $6 billion worth of Tesla stock and donate the proceeds to the United Nations’ food agency if it can show how the money would solve world hunger.
Elon Musk, the co-founder of Tesla and SpaceX recently added $122.3 billion to his fortune, pushing his net worth to $311 billion. According to the Bloomberg index, he is the first man to achieve such a huge fortune.
Musk’s statement came after U.N. World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley challenged him, Jeff Bezos and other billionaires in a CNN interview last week, calling on them to step up on “a one-time basis” to help end starvation.
In the interview, Beasley said billionaires could give “$6 billion to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don’t reach them.”
Musk replied to a tweet yesterday offering the UN $6 billion if they could show how it would solve world hunger. He added that it must also be open-source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent.
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
Beasley replied to Musk’s post on Twitter, saying he could assure the billionaire that the WFP had the systems in place for transparency and open source accounting.
“Your team can review and work with us to be totally confident of such,” he said.
“$6 billion will not solve world hunger, but it WILL prevent geopolitical instability, mass migration and save 42 million people on the brink of starvation. An unprecedented crisis and a perfect storm due to Covid/conflict/climate crises,” he added.
Whether or not the donation will actually be made remains to be seen, but it did create a massive global conversation on how to solve world hunger and what $6 billion might achieve.
Imagine if their maths is correct? This could be a global game-changer!
Hopefully, we will be able to update you and the world really soon, with some really good news!