Elon Musk Calls UN Crisis Agent’s Bluff On “Solving” World Hunger

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who now has a net worth of nearly $300 billion, has said he will donate $6 billion to fight world hunger…if the UN can prove that much money would save tens of millions of lives.

Musk was responding to director of the UN’s World Food Programme, who told CNN last week that $6 billion from people like Musk and Jeff Bezos could “help 42 million people” who he said “were literally going to die if we don’t reach them”. 

In a Tweet out this weekend, Musk challenged the UN’s statement, saying that if the World Food Programme could provide him “open sourced accounting” on how the $6 billion would be used, he would sell Tesla stock “right now and do it”.

Because we all know how important open sourced accounting is to Musk…

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.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2021

Musk demanded that the public “see precisely how the money is spent”, he wrote on Twitter.

The WFP’s David Beasley responded to Musk, according to Insider, 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.”

He clarified that $6 billion wouldn’t “solve world hunger”, as Musk wrote on his Twitter, but would rather be a “one-time donation to save 42 million lives during this unprecedented hunger crisis.”

Beasley has been spending much of his time on Twitter making the case that billionaires should chime in and help world hunger. 

The world needs to wake up. We’ve got a global humanitarian crisis on our hands that is spiraling out of control. 42M people in 43 countries face famine NOW.

All we need is $6.6B—just .36% of the top 400 US billionaires’ net worth increase last year. Is that too much to ask?? pic.twitter.com/YMD7zuPwsf

— David Beasley (@WFPChief) October 27, 2021

He said on CNN last week: “It’s not complicated. I’m not asking them to do this every day, every week, every year. 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.”