Tencent Technology News, April 23 news, Elon Musk (Elon Musk) is conducting a charity donation carnival. In the months after becoming the world’s richest man for a short while, Musk has always changed his image as a philanthropist, seeming to appear in public with “gifts” every few weeks. This is completely different from Musk’s focus on privacy and the history of making fewer large donations, even though he has been one of the richest people in the United States for ten years. In the past few months, the Tesla CEO seems to have experienced the most active charitable donation activity in his life, acting so fast that sometimes he will not send advance notice to recipients. Musk is making his largest public donation in history, which seems to be faster than any other stage in his career. On Thursday, local time in the United States, Musk announced that he will provide the winner of the XPrize climate competition with a $100 million first prize. According to relevant reports and public announcements, only in the first four months of 2021, Musk directly pledged to donate nearly US$150 million to charities. This is more than the total amount of all his charitable donations before 2021. According to available information, his total charitable donations are about 100 million U.S. dollars. However, this is not over yet. In the past few months, Musk’s foundation has spent more time behind the scenes contacting other major philanthropists and intermediaries, trying to find donation ideas and learn about best practices. He wrote on Twitter in January: “Critical feedback is always super welcome, and some donations are really effective.” What happened next was a coincidence, partly because of the influence of this tweet. In the next three months, Musk promised: -Provide a prize of 100 million US dollars for the XPrize climate competition; ――Donated US$30 million to non-profit organizations in the Grand River Valley of South Texas, including US$20 million to local school districts and charter schools, and US$10 million to revitalize the downtown of Brownsville, Texas; ――Donated US$5 million to the online course platform Khan Academy, which was a complete “surprise” for this non-profit organization; ――Donated US$5 million to two researchers in the Boston area who are studying the new coronavirus; ――Donated US$1 million to Feeding Texas, the new hometown of Musk and his foundation ― Musk also provided unidentified donations to the fund operated by Barstool Sports, a US sports blog site, SteamSpace’s space-focused competition, and the UNICEF-operated developing countries to expand Internet access projects; But the XPrize climate competition is Musk’s largest charitable commitment to date, with $100 million rewarded to entrepreneurs who come up with the best technology to capture carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and store it permanently. Musk will announce the details of the four-year game at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and answer questions. This donation is a direct feedback from his tweet in January. Peter Diamandis (Peter Diamandis) is the organizer of this challenge. He saw Musk’s request and gave him a public reply. Then he contacted Musk privately. Musk had supported XPrize before. competition. Dimantis’ idea is that he can hold the challenge again while working on solving new problems. Dimantis said: “Musk’s character is that when he clearly wants to do something, he will act very fast.” Musk finally agreed to participate in the XPrize climate competition launch event, “The purpose of publicity is Let as many people as possible know about the existence of this award.” Musk’s other donation activities are more low-key. Last fall, after seeing a tweet about Feeding Texas, Jared Birchall, the head of the Musk family’s financial office, asked Celia Cole, the head of the organization. With a helping hand, Musk is interested in donating US$100,000 for the new crown pneumonia. That winter, when the winter storm hit Texas, Cole’s team again asked Musk for help, who added a zero to his “first gift”. Musk’s propaganda machine sometimes gets ahead, as he easily does on Twitter. When Musk first announced the XPrize competition on Twitter, he said “details will be announced next week,” but it was not announced until nearly three weeks later. When Musk told the world that he would donate US$30 million to the Brownsville area, he somehow forgot to tell the city of Brownsville. The mayor of the city, Trey Mendez, said that in this tweet Before the text was sent out, he didn’t even know that Musk would donate the money. However, the money has not yet arrived. The Mayor of Mendes confirmed that the city has had “preliminary discussions” with the Musk Foundation since the tweet was published a month ago. City officials are now making plans for how to use the money. For schools in the area, this is a moment of “pie in the sky”. More than one-third of families in the United States live in poverty, and these schools mainly teach Latino students. Just after Easter, Musk’s team held a series of meetings with the head of Cameron County and the principal of the charter school, asking them how much money they might need and their wish list. Of the 20 million yuan donated to regional schools, 5 million yuan was deposited based on the number of enrolled students in each region. Another 15 million US dollars are expected to be allocated in phases starting this summer for more projects. The Rio Hondo Independent School District, where Roger Lee is located, received a $100,000 donation to promote local transportation services and support a robotics project in an elementary school. He said: “Their judgment will be whether we do what we say and whether they get what they want us to get in return. This is my understanding.” Musk’s private space company, SpaceX, has always established operations in the Rio Grande Valley, and his charitable activities in the region will certainly help deal with local relations. Musk has brought leaders like Roger Lee to SpaceX’s office. His interest in improving local schools and vocational training may bring dividends to SpaceX in the long run. Musk said that SpaceX needs to recruit more local technical talents, which will help enhance the company’s reputation. What is certain is that even with this philanthropy boom, Musk still has a long way to go if he wants to leave the name of “great philanthropist” among his generation. Although he is no longer the richest person in the world, he has benefited from the soaring Tesla stock price, which pushed his net worth to US$190 billion. However, as critics quickly pointed out, the currently disclosed donations of around $250 million accounted for only about 0.1% of Musk’s total assets. Musk has said that he should not expect major charitable donations until he may finally be free to sell some Tesla shares in a few decades. But looking at it now, Musk seems to be increasing the intensity of charitable donations, and changes may be in the making. (Tencent Technology Review/Golden Deer)
You must log in to post a comment.