\n
![](\"https:\/\/content.fortune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/GettyImages-1852147972-e1710163382490.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n [ad_1]
\n<\/p>\n
A\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0investigation<\/a> published this weekend revealed that approximately half of the tax-deductible donations made by the Musk Foundation in 2021 and 2022 benefited in some way the tycoon\u2019s business interests, partners, or family.<\/p>\n Among the beneficiaries reported by the Times<\/em> was a Texas county which was showered by metal debris from one of Musk\u2019s SpaceX<\/a> rockets, as well as a Pennsylvania billionaire who fell short of a donation target after chartering his space company\u2019s services. <\/p>\n Also on the list was Musk\u2019s non-profit school, Ad Astra, where five of the dozen or so students happened to be his own offspring.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Tesla<\/a> CEO\u2014and the second wealthiest person on the planet\u2014also donated $100 million to a charity which bought property next to a housing development occupied by his Boring Company employees, land records showed. The foundation which received the funds is run by none other than the head of Musk\u2019s family office, Jared Birchall, who manages the titan\u2019s personal fortune.\u00a0<\/p>\n In total, tax filings seen by the paper show Musk\u2019s non-profit gave away $160 million in 2022\u2014the last year for which records are available. Yet as tax law requires 5% of a foundation\u2019s assets every year go to charitable causes, he was seemingly $193 million short of his legal requirements\u2014among the very worst in the country.<\/p>\n Musk did not respond to requests for\u00a0comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Back in March 2022 Fortune<\/em> cited philanthropy experts warning Musk\u2019s foundation might in reality just serve to\u00a0lower his personal tax bill<\/a>\u00a0with little to no intent in distributing the cash, by employing a loophole known as donor-advised funds (DAFs).\u00a0<\/p>\n Musk has a habit of making generous promises that earn positive publicity, then being shaky on the follow through. The\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0cited for example his broken pledge to fix the contaminated water supply in Michigan\u2019s city of Flint, or a failed promise to donate\u00a0$6 billion<\/a>\u00a0to the World Food Programme if it could come up with a concrete spending proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n Likewise, instead of delivering ventilators during the pandemic Tesla bought\u00a0cheaper BiPAP machines<\/a>\u00a0and then slapped a Tesla sticker on the box. And while Musk pledged to finance the legal defense<\/a> of those \u2018cancelled\u2019 because of their Twitter posts, the only case he has taken on thus far is a\u00a0Gina Carano lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0filed against his personal nemesis, Disney<\/a> CEO\u00a0Bob Iger<\/a>\u2014over a post she made on rival platform Instagram<\/a>. <\/p>\n When it comes to a Saudi sentenced to death for criticising the royal family on Twitter, he has been silent<\/a>. <\/p>\n Musk does maintain that the very nature of his work is, in its own right, philanthropic. Whether it be Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink or others, he believes the companies he built into multibillion-dollar giants are helping the world already and should be considered as such.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you say philanthropy is a love of humanity, they are philanthropy,\u201d he\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0during a TED Talk interview in April 2022.<\/p>\n In November 2023 Musk added he has \u201cdone more for the environment than everyone\u2014any single human on Earth\u201d courtesy of his work developing electric vehicles at Tesla. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat I care about is the reality of goodness, not the perception of it,\u201d Musk told the New York Times DealBook Summit<\/a>. \u201cAnd what I see all over the place is people who care about looking good while doing evil.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent weeks the X owner has made principled stands on how he believes individuals and organizations should handle their donations and profits.<\/p>\n Last week Musk accused Jeff Bezos\u2019 former wife of 25 years, Mackenzie Scott, of\u00a0threatening the future of western civilization<\/a> over her philanthropic causes (though he later took the post down). He also sued OpenAI for breach of agreement by turning the non-profit into a for-profit company, only for emails to later claim he was\u00a0once in favor of the plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nMusk says his companies are philanthropic in spirit <\/h2>\n