Elon Musk wants proof his US$6 billion can solve world hunger

The United Nations' World Food Programme petitioned the automaker CEO for aid, and he replied he's consider it—if he can crunch the numbers

Kevin Miller, Bloomberg

Nov 01, 2021 • 1 day ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation

Tesla CEO Elon Musk gets back into his Tesla after talking to media before visiting the construction site of the future US electric car giant Tesla, on September 03, 2020 in Gruenheide near Berlin. Photo by Odd Andersen /Getty

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man , challenged a United Nations official’s claim that just a small percentage of his wealth could help solve world hunger.

Musk was responding to comments by David Beasley, director of the UN’s World Food Programme, who repeated a call last week following an earlier tweet this month asking billionaires like Musk to “step up now, on a one-time basis.”

Beasley specifically called for action from Musk; and Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos, the two men atop the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Just US$6 billion could keep 42 million people from dying, Beasley said.

If the World Food Programme, using transparent and open accounting, “can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it,” Musk wrote in a Twitter post.

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But it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2021

Musk is CEO of the electric-vehicle company, which last week joined the handful of companies valued at more than US$1 trillion.

The US$6-billion amount would be just a small fraction of Musk’s current net worth of US$311 billion — and less than the US$9.3 billion his wealth increased on October 29 alone, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index.

Tesla forms the vast majority of Musk’s net worth. He’s very rarely sold stock in the electric-vehicle maker, whose stock reached a record US$1,114 on Friday.

Musk, frequently outspoken on social media, has also been critical of attempts to tax U.S. billionaires.

He said on Twitter that a levy on billionaire wealth would only make a “small dent” toward paying off the national debt, arguing that the focus should be on government spending. Musk also said a billionaire tax would just be the start of taxing the merely wealthy.