UN Food Program Asks Elon Musk To Pay Part Of $6.6B To Fight World Hunger

The executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), David Beasley, released a plan this week in response to Tesla CEO and Space X founder Elon Musk’s questions about how money to mitigate world hunger would be spent.

The plan's release comes three weeks after Beasley called on the world’s billionaires in a CNN interview to contribute a portion of their wealth to help mitigate the effects of world hunger. After seeing the interview, Musk took to Twitter and said that he would sell his shares in Tesla if the U.N. program could explain how the money would be doled out.

“If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it,” Musk tweeted at the time.

In response, Beasley shared Monday that the plan involves $6.6 billion in spending that would feed 42 million starving people, averting catastrophe. The U.N. program previously clarified that this amount of money would not eradicate world hunger, but it would provide those people with one meal a day for a while.

Estimates from the WFP claim that 282.7 million people in 80 countries experience acute levels of hunger, an increase of around 110% compared to 2019. Climate crises, conflicts around the globe, and the economic stress of COVID-19 have caused the increase.

Of the proposed $6.6 billion needed, $3.5 billion would go towards buying food and funding the distribution of said food by air, river, or truck. Seven hundred million dollars would go towards creating food voucher programs in 43 countries where those programs do not exist. Two billion dollars would go towards cash and food vouchers where programs already exist. Four hundred million dollars would beef logistics for the global supply chain and create a monitoring system that can track worldwide hunger.

“This hunger crisis is urgent, unprecedented, AND avoidable. @elonmusk, you asked for a clear plan & open books. Here it is! We're ready to talk with you - and anyone else - who is serious about saving lives. The ask is $6.6B to avert famine in 2022,” Beasley tweeted.

At press time, Musk had yet to publicly respond to Beasley's plan.