Elon Musk Debates on Twitter How to Give Away His Fortune

After Elon Musk became the richest person in the world, he started thinking more about philanthropy and wanted to support some charities. Not knowing which organization to choose for donating money, Musk turned to his Twitter followers for help. Elon Musk wants to donate his fortune to make it really useful, but he says finding the right initiatives is much more complicated than it seems.

Elon Musk is a philanthropic neophyte compared with those he just leapfrogged on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the world's 500 wealthiest people. Still, Musk occupied the 7th position in this list back in summer, and now he has surpassed everyone.

Bill Gates and his friend Warren Buffett, longtime number one, co-founders of the Giving Pledge, which encourages the super-rich to donate at least half of their fortune, each handed out tens of billions in cash and stock.

Even Jeff Bezos, who has been criticized for doing little to charity, has donated a lot more than Musk. Last year, Jeff Bezos pledged $10 billion to tackle climate change, and in November, he gave away $791 million to 16 environmental groups.

Even though Elon Musk also signed up for the Giving Pledge, he donated only about $257 million, the equivalent of roughly 0,1% of his current fortune. If Gates hadn't donated so much or Bezos hadn't gotten divorced, their fortunes possibly would have been much more than Musk's.

Last month, the head of Tesla and SpaceX announced that he does not seek to accumulate as much money as possible and intends to finance the colonization of Mars.