\n
![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/GettyImages-1258986825-e1722284244228.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n [ad_1]
\n<\/p>\n
After 25 years of charitable giving, Melinda French Gates has cemented her reputation<\/a> as a philanthropist\u2014but she said some of her fellow billionaires aren\u2019t worthy of that title, despite what they say.<\/p>\n In an interview with the New York Times<\/em><\/a> Sunday, French Gates specifically commented on the charitable giving of billionaires like hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, Block<\/a> CEO Jack Dorsey, PayPal<\/a> cofounder Peter Thiel, and Tesla<\/a> CEO Elon Musk.<\/p>\n \u201cThey use their voice and they use their megaphones, but I would not call those men philanthropists,\u201d French Gates said.<\/p>\n Dorsey did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent through Block.<\/p>\n Even Ackman and Musk, who have signed the Giving Pledge<\/a> promising to give away most of their assets, still have work to do, she said, and while each of the billionaires has their own foundation, French Gates said they \u201chave not been very philanthropic yet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGo look at their record of actually giving money to society. It\u2019s not big,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Ackman did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to the Pershing Square Foundation. Musk did not reply to a request for comment sent to Tesla.<\/p>\n The billionaires, French Gates told the Times<\/em>, also don\u2019t measure up to the impact that she and her ex-husband Bill Gates, along with Warren Buffett<\/a>, have made through their decades of altruism.<\/p>\n \u201cSo you put Bill and me and Warren in a class of philanthropists doing things in a certain way, but I don\u2019t think you can then say, \u2018OK, well, let\u2019s compare to this group over here who are nonphilanthropists.\u2019 Those are nonphilanthropists, in my opinion,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n French Gates cofounded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, soon to be renamed the Gates Foundation, in 2000, and since then she and her now-ex-husband have become the face of philanthropy worldwide. Before she announced in May she was leaving<\/a> the foundation, she helped oversee more than $77 billion<\/a> in grant payments to worthy causes over two decades, according to its website.<\/p>\n For their part, the billionaires French Gates called \u201cnonphilantropists\u201d have done plenty of giving in their own way, although some of their causes have been criticized.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thiel and his foundation are most known for supporting science and entrepreneurship, including through the Thiel Fellowship<\/a>, a two-year program that gives $100,000 to young people willing to delay or leave college \u201cto build new things.\u201d Some of the program\u2019s most successful alumni include Vitalik Buterin, the creator of the Ethereum blockchain and Dylan Field, the founder of product design platform Figma.<\/p>\n The Thiel Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n The world\u2019s richest man, Elon Musk, has donated at least $7.7 billion in Tesla shares to the Musk foundation, yet some of his giving has been criticized as being self-serving. After a SpaceX<\/a> rocket blew up and scattered debris near its launch site in Cameron County, Texas, Musk announced a $20 million donation to the county\u2019s school district and another $10 million to revitalize the nearby city of Brownsville, the Times<\/em> reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2022, the last year for which full data on the Musk Foundation was available, it gave away only 2.25%, or about $157 million, of its $7 billion in assets, the Times<\/em> found. About half of Musk\u2019s donations from 2021 and 2022 were linked to his employees, his businesses, or himself in some way, according to the Times<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n CEO Daily provides key context for the news leaders need to know from across the world of business. Every weekday morning, more than 125,000 readers trust CEO Daily for insights about\u2013and from inside\u2013the C-suite. Subscribe Now<\/a>.<\/div>\n\nRecommended Newsletter:<\/strong><\/p>\n