Last October, Elon Musk made headlines with a series of tweets flirting with the idea of using his wealth to address world hunger. Recently, the Twitter exchange has returned to the spotlight due to his recent acquisition of the social media platform.

The conversation initially began when CNN Business published an article with the headline “2% of Elon Musk’s wealth could solve world hunger, says director of UN food scarcity organization.”

In the report, the executive director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), David Beasley, gave the figure of $6 billion as an estimate for the cost of addressing world hunger. CNN wrote that $6 billion equated to just 2% of Musk’s net worth.

Four days after the article was written, Dr. Eli David, a tech researcher, lecturer, and entrepreneur, tweeted a screenshot of the story. He pointed out that the WFP had raised $8.4 billion in 2020, asking how it was possible that $6 billion could now solve world hunger if more than $8 billion had not done so the year before.

The Tesla and SpaceX founder replied to Dr. David’s tweet, challenging the WFP to explain how that amount of money would end world hunger and offering to hand over the funds if he deemed the organization’s answer acceptable.

Musk quickly followed up with another tweet, stating that as a condition of the donation, the WFP would have to make public the way it used the money.

WFP’s Beasley responded and first qualified that the headline was written in error; $6 billion would not solve world hunger, he said, but it would save 42 million people “on the brink of starvation.”

He then replied to Musk’s tweet demanding that the money’s use be visible to the public, assuring the billionaire that the WFP would be transparent about how it employed the donation.

Musk also instructed the WFP to publish its current spending reports and its proposed plan for the money he would be donating.

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Indeed, an audit coordinator for the UN Development Programme, Arora Akanksha, suggested looking into the WFP’s financial statements. She pointed to the organization’s substantial assets and asked why it did not use its own investments to help the cause.

CNN changed its headline the following day, clarifying that Beasley believed Musk’s wealth “could help solve” world hunger rather than solve it completely.

Between November 1 and November 3, Beasley returned to Musk’s Twitter thread, providing relevant links to the WFP website and offering a quick summary of how $6.6 billion could help save the lives of 42 million people. He also noted the organization’s records are all public and available on its website.

On November 15, the WFP’s completed plan, as requested by Musk, was published. Beasley tweeted a link to the detailed strategy and tagged the entrepreneur in the post.

However, Musk did not respond to the plan, whether to deem it passable or unacceptable.

His only “answer” to Beasley after he hinted about donating the money came hours after the initial exchange on October 31.

Musk replied to Beasley’s initial tweet (in which the director had clarified the CNN headline) and asked, “What happened here?”

Linked in the tweet was an article published by Express in December 2015 that alleged starving children were forced to exchange sexual favors with UN peacekeepers for food in war zones the year before.

This would be his only discussion of the $6 billion donation to world hunger on Twitter.

The billionaire did donate $5.74 billion worth of Tesla stock between November 19 and November 29 to an undisclosed charity. That information came this past February as part of a filing with the Security and Exchange Commission.

Although it is not publicly known where the donation was made, it is alleged that it could have been placed into a donor-advised fund, or DAF. This is an investment account where assets can continue to grow with the promise they will go to a charity. Doing this allows for immediate charitable giving tax breaks with the option to choose a specific charity later.

Musk has been more open about some of his other charitable donations, including one of $30 million to different Texas nonprofits and public schools in the Brownsville, Texas, area where SpaceX is located.

Musk’s private foundation also handed out $23.6 million in grants from July 2019 to June 2020. The year after, Musk donated $50 million in 2021 to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

After being contacted by Fortune magazine in February about Musk’s mysterious charitable donation, the UN WFP issued a statement indicating it had not received anything from him at that point.

Though the Twitter thread between Musk and Beasley has long ended, Musk’s purchase of the social media giant has now stirred the topic up again.

Many pointed out that the billionaire had elected not to provide $6 billion to help solve world hunger, yet he had shelled out $44 billion to buy Twitter.

On April 25, the day that Twitter accepted Musk’s offer, several users of the platform brought up the October 2021 exchange.

Bryan Tyler Cohen, who hosts a podcast on big names in politics, noted that Musk never seemed serious about giving the money to the UN.

Another user simply accused Twitter’s new owner of going back on his word.

At the 2022 Met Gala on May 2, Musk was asked about his charitable giving directly by an Entertainment Tonight reporter.

“My compаnies аre intended to do good for the future of humаnity,” he said. “I’m trying to do good for humаnity аnd civilizаtion’s future.”

The entire content of the website for Musk’s foundation is a five-bullet list of the goals its grants support:

– Renewable energy research and advocacy.
– Human space exploration research and advocacy.
– Pediatric research.
– Science and engineering education.
– Development of safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity.

Given the lack of further information from Musk, it remains unknown if he has made any donation to the UN WFP. Whether any of his future philanthropy aligns with the organization remains uncertain.