Elon Musk Won’t Leave All His Billions To His Kids: Here’s Why

Elon Musk, chief executive of both Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, remains to be the richest in the world, and just like other business moguls, such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, he won’t be leaving all of his wealth to his kids.

In April 2012, Musk signed the Giving Pledge and committed to giving a majority of his wealth to help address some of society’s most pressing problems.

When he signed the pledge, he was worth $2 billion. Ten years later, he is significantly wealthier and has a lot more to give away.

As per Forbes estimates, Musk has a net worth of $249.3 billion today.

In 2018, Musk tweeted that he would sell around $100 million worth of Tesla stocks every few years for charitable purposes and would make “major disbursements in about 20 years when Tesla is in a steady state.”

Musk has donated about $25 million to nonprofit groups through his Musk Foundation since he launched the foundation in 2002, as per a Forbes report published in 2020.

The Musk Foundation has made 350 contributions since it launched, with roughly half, or about $17 million, given to nonprofits focused on scientific research or education. The foundation’s largest contribution to date was a $10 million grant to YC Org, an entity affiliated with Y Combinator founder Sam Altman.

Musk made the headlines this week after a regulatory filing revealed that he donated about $5.7 million in Tesla shares to an unidentified charity in November.

The charitable gesture made Musk the second-biggest U.S. donor in 2021, according to CNN. He is trailing behind Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, who gave $15 billion last year.

Previous securities filings showed that Musk sold Tesla shares worth over $16 billion in the final two months of 2021, with most of the proceeds going to pay for an estimated $11 billion U.S. federal tax bill.

Last year, Musk was challenged by David Beasley, executive director of UN World Food Programme (WFP), to make a donation that would help solve world hunger.

"If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6 billion will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it," Musk wrote on Twitter in October.

The WFP executive director did respond to Musk’s plan but said he was too excited upon learning that Musk was "engaged."