2 percent of Elon Musk’s wealth could solve world hunger problems, says UN; Musk tweets he'll sell Tesla stock if UN can prove it
The tech billionaire is in the news again after UN WFP Director David Beasley's comment that a small share of Elon Musk’s wealth could solve world hunger problems. Here’s how it played out on Twitter:
The Director of the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) David Beasley recently stated in an interview that just two percent of Elon Musk’s wealth could solve world hunger. The statement stirred a heated debate on Twitter after Dr Eli David took to the networking platform for a ‘fact check’.
Elon Musk took to Twitter and said that he would sell his Tesla stock ‘right now’ if WFP can describe how exactly $6B will solve world hunger.
What happened?
In a TV interview on CNN's ‘Connect the World’' with Becky Anderson, Beasley asked the world’s top billionaires, including SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, to step up on a one-time basis and use a fraction of their net worth, about $6 billion, to help 42 million people that are "literally going to die if we don't reach them".
David Beasely reacted to Musk’s jibe saying that the headline was "not accurate. He had meant that a one-time donation would save 42 million lives during this unprecedented hunger crisis.
“I am not opposed to anyone making money, but I AM opposed to people dying of hunger when there’s $400 trillion of wealth in the world today,” he wrote in another tweet.
“The $8.4B you refer to covers what we needed to reach 115 million people in 2020 with food assistance. We need $6B-plus NOW on top of our existing funding requirements due to the perfect storm from the compounding impact of COVID, conflict, and climate shocks.”
Elon Musk had also said in his tweet that it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent. Beasley responded, by saying,” I can assure you that we have the systems in place for transparency and open source accounting. Your team can review and work with us to be totally confident of such."
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, with $311 billion net worth, Elon Musk is the richest entrepreneur in the world’s exclusive $100 billion club.
Edited by Teja Lele