40 Billionaires Pledge Away Half Their Wealth
More and more billionaires are responding to Bill Gates' Giving Pledge.
Back in July, Paul Allen announced that he was responding to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates' call for the country’s billionaires to give half their money to charity. At the time we knew of several other billionaires who made the same promise, including Eli and Edythe Broad and John and Ann Doerr. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that 40 people – including 30 billionaires – have joined the cause, and the tech industry is definitely well represented.
Along with Microsoft co-founders Paul and Bill, you've got Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, who says he has long intended to give away at least 95 percent of his wealth to charity; Star Wars director George Lucas; Alfred E. Mann; Lorry I. Lokey, the founder of Business Wire; Jeff Skoll, the first president of eBay; and Walter Scott Jr. Other who have pledged include Barron Hilton, David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, and Berni and Billi Marcus, the founders of Home Depot.
Buffet and Gates' Giving Pledge asks the nation's billionaires to give the majority of their money to charity when they die. However, the website does state that despite requiring all pledges to declare their intentions publicly in a letter, it is not a legally binding promise.
The letters make for interesting reading, especially if you're wondering what kinds of charities are benefiting from all this generosity. George Lucas is donating his money to improving education, and Larry Ellison, who apparently didn't even want to write a letter but did so on Buffet's request, is backing medical research and education.
Larry Ellison's letter is below. The others, which are too long to post, can be found here.
To whom it may concern,
Many years ago, I put virtually all of my assets into a trust with the intent of giving away at least 95% of my wealth to charitable causes. I have already given hundreds of millions of dollars to medical research and education, and I will give billions more over time. Until now, I have done this giving quietly – because I have long believed that charitable giving is a personal and private matter. So why am I going public now? Warren Buffett personally asked me to write this letter because he said I would be “setting an example” and “influencing others” to give. I hope he’s right.
Larry Ellison
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Nice!
I know a good charity: my mortgage
Please contact me if you need my address, thanks!
Not Steve Jobs?
anyone has any "excess" money, they can shoot me a few mil
The best thing about being a billionaire and giving away half your money is the worst you could do is be a millionaire.
Not Steve Jobs?
Honestly??? I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one receiving some of the charity money...
The best thing about being a billionaire and giving away half your money is the worst you could do is be a millionaire.
Correction, "multi-millionaire"...
The best thing about being a billionaire and giving away half your money is the worst you could do is be a millionaire.
i never thought of it that way. insightful
Not Steve Jobs?
lol... that was the first thing I thought of after I read the article. Steve Jobs is mysteriously absent.
It makes me hope there still hope for humanity after all.
Apart from my wise-cracks above, i feel that this is a great move, more of this needs to happen more often. Honestly, what do people think they would have done with all this money anyway? It should least go to a good cause...
Not Steve Jobs?
Hey Steve... you're donating it wrong!
I know a good charity: my mortgagePlease contact me if you need my address, thanks!
Hi! I am a billionaire from Nigeria. I need to transfer millions of dollars to the US. If you help me, I can give you a substantial sum. All you will need to do is send me 5000 dollars for me to pay off certain government officials.
It's easy to give away so much when you have so much.... a billionaire giving away 50% of his wealth is nothing compared to a beggar on the street giving away $5 out of the only $10 he has on him...
Theres gonna be no poor people left at this rate. Its absolutely fantastic tho, one person with billions is pointless especially if its sitting doing nothing. Money is only useful when its spent and what a better way to spend it. Personally I would spend it between disability and special needs schools and folding@home.
you realize these "donations" are tax write offs.....as if most of them don't have an army of CPAs figuring out how best not to pay taxes year and year out....
It's easy to give away so much when you have so much.... a billionaire giving away 50% of his wealth is nothing compared to a beggar on the street giving away $5 out of the only $10 he has on him...
Yea and how often do you see that happen? I'm still waiting for the bum that comes up and asks for a sandwich instead of asking for a few bucks to buy one (which really means buying booze).
These billionaires are wealthy for a reason, not chance. They worked their asses off, were creative and competitive. They have absolutely no obligation to share their wealth with anyone else because it is their money and no one elses. Yea they would look like douches for hoarding it all and just sitting on it but they can if they want.
I think it speaks well to their character when they give back, no matter how big or small the amount.
I bet uncle sam now hates these guys and was planning on raping them with the 35% estate tax. If I had 35% of the fortune of the poeple listed, I would buy back the U.S. from the companies that currently own it.
Hey... give EA some mills so renew its staff...
Hmmm
*looks around*
I don't see Jobs on the list. I wonder why. /sarcasm
This is why capitalism works people... humans with excess money give it away out of the goodness of their hearts. sort of defeats the whole premise of tax the rich now doesnt it?
With the economy the way it is they might want to give a little less of it away. Their families I am sure are not happy about this.
yeah, im sure its really hard living off of $500 million dollars -_-
Giving away money after death is giving away something you no longer have, and no longer can use. It's not the most charitable act.
Yea and how often do you see that happen? I'm still waiting for the bum that comes up and asks for a sandwich instead of asking for a few bucks to buy one (which really means buying booze). These billionaires are wealthy for a reason, not chance. They worked their asses off, were creative and competitive. They have absolutely no obligation to share their wealth with anyone else because it is their money and no one elses. Yea they would look like douches for hoarding it all and just sitting on it but they can if they want.I think it speaks well to their character when they give back, no matter how big or small the amount.
They're giving away money AFTER they die, in most cases. I can give away my stuff to after I'm dead, and I swear, I won't miss it a bit. It's not that hard to do.
Also, you are equating hard work with money, but there's not a direct correlation, but probably some. Bill Gates is very wealthy because he was at the right place at the right time, and someone else's wife didn't like IBM.
IBM choosing MS-DOS made Microsoft. IBM choosing the 8088 made Intel. There were competitors for both, Microsoft's screwed up royally, and Intel was just lucky people at IBM were more comfortable with their crappy chips, and they were a weaker company and easier to control (at the time), compared to Motorola and the 68000, which was much better.
There are people who work a Hell of a lot harder than Bill Gates, and there are people a Hell of a lot smarter than he is, but they won't be as wealthy as he.
Never underestimate the guiding hand of Fate. Even Zeus and Odin knew they couldn't change it. What chance does a mortal have?
It makes me hope there still hope for humanity after all.
These kind of people have always been generous with their money towards the end of their lives. It's either that or the Feds are going to snatch up 60% and piss it away on other things unimportant to them.
Yeah, I was expecting that there would be 40 billionaires, and that they were giving it away immediately. Or at least entering a legally binding deal with a charity, instead of simply writing a public letter. I wonder how many of them will back out in the years between now and their death.
Yeah, I was expecting that there would be 40 billionaires, and that they were giving it away immediately. Or at least entering a legally binding deal with a charity, instead of simply writing a public letter. I wonder how many of them will back out in the years between now and their death.
Rumour has it Bill tried to get in contact with Steve Jobs via mobile, but everytime he tried he recieved an out of network error or upon pickup was disconnected. Im guessing hes holding his iPhone incorrectly or has signal issues! XD
Well I guess they are not scalawags after all : ) All people should have a good place to live and have enough food. Money is an old world thing cause really the system right now is perfect and probably will stay that way even if money goes away. Stores are there all of the connections are made right, and when people gather all of their needs like than there is no reason for trade anymore. Everyone just has to contribute to society their share and everything will be fine.
The best thing about being a billionaire and giving away half your money is the worst you could do is be a millionaire.
not if you have more than 2 billion dollars!
This is not capitalism,
This is why capitalism works people... humans with excess money give it away out of the goodness of their hearts. sort of defeats the whole premise of tax the rich now doesnt it?
YOu realize there are some 700 billionairs in the world, 40 of them giving away half of it means nothing in the grand scheme, they are the anamoly not the norm, what the guys who are giving it away realized unlike this make believe fantasy that you pull yourself up by your britches and you will succeed is that you have to be helped along the way, no one succeeds on their own, yes success for the most part requires hard work, but that's a small fraction of it, being born in the right place and right time, having the right pedigree (enter Gates and Buffet (both of whom had parents well to do with right connections to cultivate their talents), as well as dumb luck play a bigger role. Buffet himself explains "I'm not that special, at all, I simply had a skill that was useful in our society and lucked up along the way, if was born in the middle of the Amazon and could do what I can do, it would be useless". This little annectdote is very important because, the short of it, is that where your born, the advantage you have or dont' have, and so on plays the greatest role in success, we think it's even playing field not at all. Guys like Gates and Buffet, simply, realized it's not, some of it's societal guilt, some of it is genuine kindness, but ... capitalism is the anti-thesis of giving.
Because capitalism is premised on acquiring capital and leverage, it's liek the game of monopoly eventual you get enough capital and ou can't be beat no matter how hard the other players try. And this is a microcosm of life. Sure, a few, will jump strata, but the vast majority no matter how much work they put in ... simply due to the nature of our system will never rather could never be as successful. Taxing the ultra-rich heavily is the only means to level the field or keep the flow of capital going, otherwise, it masses in the hands of to few. In fact, the more successful a capitalistic system the greater the gap, between, the haves and the have nots, that's why the US, has the largest gap between it's rich and poor of all industrialized nations, and by default it has to widen. In any event, the idea, this is capitalism at work is false, it's that some very rich people realized that the system would ultimately fail if wealth in fact is not spread. You'll end up with an oligarchy and serfdom otherwise, much like the game of monopoly.