Elon Musk has been named the world's 'least philanthropic' billionaire by Forbes, which reported last week that the Tesla chief executive, with an estimated net worth of $839 billion, has given only a tiny fraction of his fortune directly to people in need. The magazine's assessment, published on Monday, 20 April, places Elon Musk at the top of a new ranking of mega-wealthy donors who, despite eye-watering paper wealth, have disbursed relatively little of it as straightforward charity.
The news came after months of breathless speculation over Musk's trajectory towards becoming the world's first trillionaire. In November, People Magazine reported that Tesla shareholders had approved a new pay package that, on some projections, could push his net worth as high as $8.5 trillion within a decade, provided he meets a series of performance and tenure conditions, including staying on as Tesla's chief executive for at least seven and a half years. Against that backdrop, scrutiny of how much he actually parts with has inevitably hardened.
