They typically donate to their own charities.
Furthermore: who’d they give it to? Someone good I hope…
billionaires are the biggest cheapskates out there, they dont like to give any money out ever, unless they get a better ROI or for PR purposes(eg, GATES to deflect from his epstein ties)
If everyone on this list gave the same percentage as Warren Buffett, the world would be a visibly better place.
Edit: To be clear, I am of the opinion that no one should be as rich as Warren Buffet, but I simply wanted to make the point that even as much as one third of all their wealth would visibly change the world, while leaving these people with a dragon’s hoard of wealth.
Fuck that, just tax them at that percentage. They usually donate to their own charities and charities don’t cover needs like government programs do. As well if they’re religious they may have stipulations that exclude people instead of include.
If everyone on this list had their net wealth capped at $100 million, their quality of life would be totally unaffected, but poverty wouldn’t exist, and the retirement age would be 45.
Gates .ay be an asshole like the rest of them, but the reason he’s probably not on the list is Melinda’s Gates Foundation.
unfortanely it is not just about giving it out but where, as gates has shown, sometimes money given out can be harmful, gates only gives out money to things will benefit him
Uh, polio eradication, malaria prevention, vaccine development? I work in the field, and what theFoundation along with Buffet’s money has been transformational. Don’t just believe things, research them. Buffet plans to match the BMGF yearly funding until they run out. That is why Buffet is also the only one giving a significant amount away.
buffet’s money usually goes to good places for what I know, but for example bill gate’s charaity goes a lot for subtle propaganda campaigns
As I said before, most of Buffets philanthropic efforts (33 billion at the time, much more now) were to BMGF.
Tax the fuck outta them.
Tax them like they’re poor.
Don’t rely on generosity.
Tax them UNTIL they’re poor
Make them pay the same effective tax rate as a poor person and I’ll be happy.
That would be an improvement, but where I live, actually poor people have pretty low taxes. Tax the rich like the middle income brackets, and then some!
Seize their assets and send them to reeducation camps so they can learn useful work like toilet scrubbing
If you tax them like they’re poor, they’d pay even less tho
The funny thing is, I think Bill Gates even voluntarily pointed this out about himself. It may have been what lead him to the change in plan where he eventually donates most of his fortune before dying.
Doesn’t mean anything anyone else has said here is wrong, even about him. Very common for billionaires to find messages to save face.
His donations are mostly to things connected to him and family, aren’t they?
A lot of the Gates foundation goes towards infectious diseases, maternity and child care (around the world).
It’s done for tax breaks of course, but that’s the dumb system we accept.
I would have thought taxing wealth and distributing not based off individuals decisions but rather global/national networks and experts would be the best way, but hell… The way this current administration is ciphering funds out of everything including the military to push a partisan agenda shows that could go horribly wrong as well
It’s also done in such a way as to prioritize for profit solutions rather than non profit solutions
I don’t give a fuck how much money do they give to charities they own so avoid taxes. Tell me how much taxes did they pay.
Below is a list of all tax payments by the names on the post:
Remember, the average person donates around 4% of their income every year.
Nearly all of these billionaires, with more money than you’d ever have in a thousand lifetimes, haven’t donated as much in their entire life as you will in just one year, as a percentage of their net worth.
Keep in mind that donations to religious institutes are counted as charitable donations, whereas they can - in the best case - be more accurately described as variable membership fees. That’s 39% of all donations according to the link.
Some of the donations to education institutes (19%) are also not really donations but rather bribes, aimed at receiving preferential treatment for children in admissions.
Even taking that into account, charitable giving (by non-billionaires) tends to be quite high in the US compared to other western countries. Perhaps general distrust of the government plays a role. Speaking only for myself, I could give much more to charity, but only give to the Wikimedia Foundation since by my reckoning most of the causes that should get more money (e.g., scientific research) can be handled overwhelmingly more efficiently by the government. So I would end up spending money which goes to lobbying against what I consider the better solution. I would much rather pay more taxes and vote accordingly.
I also occasionally throw a Wikipedia donation amount of money at the ACLU (I’m aware of the issues with them but they’re also a load bearing institution on American freedom). Also bail funds during mass protests.
Text:
Fascinating chart with one outlier: Warren Buffett.
At the low end, giving 0.06% of one’s wealth is equivalent to:
Net worth → Lifetime Giving
50K→$30
100K→$60
500K→$300
$1M→$600
Most folks give far more by % in a single year.
Source for the chart: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswealthteam/2026/02/09/americas-top-25-philanthropists---and-why-musk-page-and-ellison-arent-on-the-list/
Good god Musky’s net worth is 780 billion now! I can’t even… 🤬
It’s in the ~800s now. We’re gonna have a trillionaire by 2030 omfg
G-U-I-L-L-O-T-I-N-E
Is the money Musk gave to influence the last election part of it?
Nah, that’s just cost of doing business
Is buying Twitter included?
Giving money is not out of the good of their heart. It’s to buy influence and face. “Look, I gave money to child cancer research, look how awesome I am. Now I’m on the board and can control how the money is spent, for instance, buy faulty machines from my company.” But at the same time they do not pay taxes, because then they don’t have control over the money they lose and it doesn’t buy them anything.
Even the guy that gave ~30% to charity still spent less percentage of their wealth than a regular person does on taxes.
wow. Half a billion from the almost trillionaire? What a stand up guy!
Elon Musk’s largest single political donation effort was over US$277 million to support Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign via his political action committee. Prior to that, his philanthropic focus through the Musk Foundation heavily favored AI research (OpenAI), education (Ad Astra/Astra Nova), and various causes often tied to himself. 🤮
wow. Who’d have thunk the trillionaire would only be looking out for his best interests :/ Ugh. Fuck elon so much.
And yet I think the only one who’s actually happy is probably Buffet. Most of them are so hated by everyone and clearly have mental, emotional or social problems.
Especially Musk, I don’t think you can pay me his net worth to convince me to be him (although all the better since I’m also rather attached to my head and I’d rather not lose it).
Warren Buffet is the closest thing there is to a “good” billionaire. He made his money through responsible investing (investing in stocks based on the quality of the company and product rather than demanding short-term profit at the expense of future sustainability like the rest of the market), openly campaigns for higher taxes on the wealthy, pays his employees a generous wage, and was one of the first to join Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge and the only billionaire I know of to immediately follow through and donate away huge swaths of his fortune, while the other Pledges only gave vague promises to donate a portion of their wealth to charity at some point before they die.
He’s not perfect, but if more wealthy people were like him the world would be a much better place.
if any good billionaires exist, I’d say gaben is almost there. but i hate the mega wealthy, so that’s a bit of a stretch in my mind.
I don’t think there’s enough information about Gabe Newell to make a solid determination of morality. His company makes a good product - one that focuses on maximizing the quality of the user experience instead of extracting every cent it can. That’s rare and admirable, but Valve also ushered in the era of loot crates with TF2 and CS and designed some of the most predatory forms of that model.
Regarding Gabe himself, if he makes large donations to charity he doesn’t advertise that fact. But he’s a private person, so it’s possible he’s a major philanthropist but keeps it anonymous. He seemingly lacks the obvious vices of other billionaires (he doesn’t interfere in politics or commit sex crimes) and hasn’t been caught in any scandals. The worst thing he’s done that I’m aware of is that time Valve gave a fake job offer to the Half-Life 2 leaker in hopes of getting him into the country so the feds could grab him.
He also doesn’t seem to do much with his money. His main hobby is collecting knives, something he could have done with a fraction of a fraction of a percent of his wealth. He does own a fleet of yachts, but he demands they be as environmentally friendly as possible and leases them out for ecological research when he’s not using them.
I’d personally rate him as neutral. He’s not doing anything to make the world worse, but he’s not really doing much to improve it either. The bar is just so low for billionaires that he seems amazing in comparison.
His main hobby is collecting knives
And yachts. Big ones. Ones that make rich people look like peasants.
That’s definitely true, but from what I’ve heard, he pays his employees VERY well. Most, if not all are millionaires i believe. But yeah, the yacht thing wigs me out. There are people (probably not his employees) who are living pay day to pay day, often below that, and he buys a $500M yacht. But yeah, all your points stand true.
Plus most of these donations are to charities they own.
