A United Nations official said earlier in the week that just two percent of Elon Musk’s wealth could solve world hunger.
The tech billionaire is currently the richest person on the planet by far and he seems to be dedicating a lot of that to space exploration.
However, the director of the United Nations’ World Food Programme said he could do a world of good if he contributed to ending global hunger.
David Beasley called on Musk and Jeff Bezos (the second richest person on Earth) to reconsider where they are putting their money.
He told CNN: “$6 billion to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don’t reach them. It’s not complicated.”
Director Beasley explained that climate change, humanitarian crises and other impacts have caused massive amounts of food shortages.
“For example, take the United States and the region in Central America, the Dry Corridor, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua — just down in that area alone,” he said.
“We’re feeding a lot of people down there and the climate is just changing with hurricanes and flash flooding; it’s just devastating. We’re out of fuel. We’re out of cash, in terms of paying our people and we are running out of money and we can’t get our trucks in.”
Elon Musk, the richest person on earth
The tech billionaire expanded his net worth this week by a casual $36 billion, easily making him the richest person on the planet by far.
It was all thanks to rental car company Hertz making an order for 100,000 Tesla cars to their enterprise.
The $4.2 billion deal and resulting 13 per cent rise in the share price meant Tesla’s market capitalisation was pushed it into the trillion dollar club alongside the likes of Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.
That caused huge dividends for Musk because he owns a 21 per cent stake in Tesla. Forbes says the tech billionaire’s stake in the car company meant his personal net worth jumped up to $255.2 billion.
Musk’s personal net worth is currently larger than Greece’s gross domestic product (GDP). The businessman and engineer who is currently the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is currently worth $219.9 billion, while the nation of Greece’s GDP is $189.4 billion.
For a single individual to be worth more than any developed country is astounding, but to be worth more than contemporary Greece is no small feat.
That made Musk ‘the richest he’s ever been, and likely the richest person to ever walk the planet’. The publication added: “He’s richer than any billionaire Forbes has ever tracked.”
Elon Musk is the only person in the $200+ billion club after Jeff Bezos dropped down to $193 million.
Related: Elon Musk is Worth as Much as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet Combined
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