A United Nation report released in May 2021 found that at least 155 million people faced crisis levels of food insecurity in 2020.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres notes in the report:
“Conflict and hunger are mutually reinforcing. We need to tackle hunger and conflict together to solve either…We must do everything we can to end this vicious cycle. Addressing hunger is a foundation for stability and peace.”
Recently David Beasley, the Director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), tweeted asking billionaires like Elon Musk to “step up now, on a one-time basis.”
Beasley called for action from Tesla’s Elon Musk and Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos who are atop the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Further, Beasley told CNN
“The top 400 billionaires in the United States, the net-worth increase was $1.8 trillion in the past year. All I’m asking for is .36% of your net-worth increase. I’m for people making money, but God knows I’m all for you helping people who are in great need right now. The world is in trouble.”
Dr. Eli Dvaid, Co-Founder at Deep Instinct Sec and DeepCube fact-checked UN’s tweet and cliamex that 2% of Musk’s wealth is $6B while in 2020 WFP raised $8.4B – “How come it didn’t ‘solve world hunger?”
In response to Dr. David’s tweet, even Musk posted a challenge to UN officials’ claims.
Musk wrote in a Twitter post that WFP should describe their request in “open accounting” and explain “exactly how $6B will solve world hunger.”
Musk, whose current net worth of $311 billion, said that he “will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.”
US-based journalist Edward Luce tweeted that Musk’s net worth is now more than the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Pakistan.
Arora Akanksha who stood for UN Secretary-General’s position in 2021 tweeted that it is “very interesting how the UN of today gets away scot-free.”
In response, Beasley tweeted to Musk that “$6B will not solve world hunger, but it WILL prevent geopolitical instability, mass migration and save 42 million people on the brink of starvation.”
While, Musk once again insisted that WFP should publish its “current & proposed spending in detail,” so that “people can see exactly where the money goes.”
As CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, founder of The Boring Company, and co-founder of OpenAI and Neuralink, Musk is an out of box thinker who knows both business and charity.
Earlier this year, Musk went on a single largest charitable commitment of $150 million.
The way Musk works definitely makes him an easy target for Left activists and bureaucratic organisations that wish to ‘wealth shame’ or ‘wealth guilt’ the world’s rich.
However, many people have dismissed such left critiques and believe that generally, billionaires tend to do a good job at giving away their money.
To the general public, Elon Musk’s fair charitable acts, business acumen, innovative thinking, and frank tweets make him appear as a possible candidate who could fill the leadership vacuum in such bureaucratic organisations to reinvigorate them for the public good.