Billionaire Elon Musk’s charities are mainly to polish his name. This billionaire gets $2 billion in tax exemption for charity activities but does not hire employees, only using it for personal benefits.

The charity has no employees

Elon Musk is facing the risk of having to pay billions of dollars in fines after his charity foundation was discovered to not hire anyone and he only actively spends money when he has to pay too much in taxes.

While Bill Gates uses his fortune to try to improve health care in Africa, Walmart’s Walton family has pushed for change in the American education system, Elon Musk, the billionaire 2nd in the world, mainly doing charity activities to serve their own interests.

According to the New York Times , Elon Musk has continuously built a charity fund named after him with tax-deductible stock donations with a total value of more than 7 billion USD, making this the largest charity fund in the US at that time. there.

However, tax records show that Tesla boss does not hire any employees for charity. Billions of dollars are handled by just one council with 3 executives, billionaire Elon Musk, and 2 volunteers.

Sharing with the New York Times , Ms. Matilda Simon, a volunteer and personal employee of the Musk family, said she spends very little time for this foundation, on average only about 6 minutes per week. The other person is Mr. Jared Birchall, who is the Musk family’s general asset manager, and only works 1 hour a week for the charity fund.

Although Elon Musk believes that his business has brought many good things to the world and has no obligation to do charity. But the New York Times believes that establishing a tax-exempt non-profit organization requires Tesla’s boss to act for the public according to the law instead of serving his own interests. Elon Musk is at risk of facing a significant penalty for taking advantage of loopholes to evade taxes.

SpaceX’s Starship rocket in Cameron County, Texas, USA (Photo: New York Times).

The New York Times investigative report shows that the Musk Foundation’s 2021-2022 donations showed that half of the money was related to Elon Musk’s interests.

Among the donations the Musk Foundation has made is $55 million to help a major SpaceX customer. In addition, there are charities that are only disbursed when millions of people in Cameron County, Texas, USA are affected after Elon Musk’s Starship rocket explodes.

This fund also has donations to two schools associated with Elon Musk’s business activities. One school is located in the SpaceX complex, the other is next to the new subdivision for Tesla’s employees.

Research expert Benjamin Soskis of the Urban Institute said that while other billionaires try to multiply the effectiveness of each dollar of charity to society, billionaire Elon Musk’s fund does not have any direction or focus. No mind that only revolves around your business.

Before March 2021, the Musk foundation had never announced any donations to Cameron County, an impoverished area in Texas where the SpaceX launch site is located. But after a SpaceX rocket exploded that month and fell in the area, the fund began donating to compensate people.

Open a school for your children and lead Tesla

Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal founded the Musk Foundation in 2001 before selling Paypal to eBay for $1.5 billion. This Tesla boss earned $175 million from the above deal, thereby contributing shares worth $2 million to charity.

The fund’s website has many beautiful animations with messages encouraging people to donate money, but they did not have any contact information when a New York Times reporter  checked from 2005 until now. .

To date, Elon Musk’s total net worth is more than 195.1 billion USD but he spends almost no money on charity.

“Tesla has done more to protect the environment than all other companies combined. As the company’s leader, I have done more for the environment than any other person on earth,” Elon Musk each spoke proudly.

Most of the money disbursed by the Musk fund is tied to individuals familiar or related to Elon Musk, including events organized by his brother.

Ad Astra school’s campus, behind the security gate of the complex owned by SpaceX (Photo: New York Times).

In addition, Elon Musk also used this fund to establish a non-profit school called Ad Astra, mainly to raise his children with the children of Tesla or SpaceX leaders.

The principal of Astra School, Joshua Dahn, said that Elon Musk’s five children are studying here and most of the students are children of SpaceX employees.

Two former SpaceX executives, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Astra was considered a privilege for the children of executives and that it was almost impossible for regular employees to get their children into this aristocratic school.

In addition, the Musk fund also disburses many projects but does not have a specific strategy. Disbursement activities are often related to Elon Musk’s own commitments or related to the company’s business activities.

In 2016, Tesla boss donated $254 million in shares to charity. Immediately after that, he used this same source of money to disburse 10 million USD to OpenAI, the father of ChatGPT. Subsequent disbursements were also directly related to billionaire Elon Musk’s personal interests.

Actively donate to charity to receive tax deductions

At the end of 2021, Elon Musk received 25 billion USD in bonus shares from Tesla and had to pay up to 11 billion USD in taxes. Since then, Elon Musk has “turned around” and started actively doing charity work to receive tax reductions according to his lawyer’s recommendation.

In October 2021, Elon Musk publicly announced the idea of ​​​​a huge charitable gift. Accordingly, he will sell Tesla shares and give the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 6 billion USD. After that, the FAO side established a plan but Elon Musk suddenly did not speak up.

Instead, the Tesla boss poured $5.7 billion in shares into the Musk fund, making this organization one of the 20 largest charitable funds in the US and helping Elon Musk save more than $2 billion in taxes.

By law, charitable foundations must disburse a minimum of 5% of assets each year. Thus, the Musk fund will have to disburse hundreds of millions of dollars. But Elon Musk’s charity organization does not comply with this.

Billionaire Elon Musk (Photo: The Verge).

In 2021, the Musk fund is still 41 million USD away from the standard. Entering 2022, this number increased to 193 million USD and only gave away 2.25% of its total asset value of 7 billion USD. Billionaire Elon Musk’s charitable fund deficit is the 4th largest among all unsatisfactory charitable funds in the US.

Currently, this fund does not have information on charity disbursements in 2023 and will likely be subject to a tax penalty equal to 30% of the shortfall amount from 2022.

Even the disbursement packages of the Musk fund are related to the Tesla boss’s business activities.

For example, the Musk Foundation gave $5 million to a United Nations program to help some rural schools in many countries access satellite Internet, a service of Starlink-SpaceX. In at least two cases, these countries later became Musk customers by connecting their schools to the Starlink satellite service.

Obviously, Elon Musk is doing charity work for himself and if this trend continues, it is likely that the tax authorities will step in and make the Tesla owner face a billion-dollar fine for tax evasion.