Elon Musk has made another one of his yearly charitable donations, this time handing over 268,000 Tesla stocks to unnamed charities which amounts to around $108,000,000 overall.
Billionaires are often quite public with their philanthropic actions, and Elon Musk is certainly no different. He has in previous years handed out billions to charities including the Musk Foundation which he himself is the president of, and this year is certainly more of the same.
He has even only recently made some rather disparaging statements about various charities.
He's pushed his followers away from donating to Wikipedia as he doesn't agree with how the site spends its money, and he's also called MacKenzie Scott's multi-billion dollar donations 'concerning' as they don't align with his personal politics.
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That still hasn't stopped him from continuing his own donations though, as the tech mogul has handed out 268,000 Tesla stocks this year, equivalent to around $108,000,000 if considering the closing price at the time of the announcement.
It's not quite as simple as your standard charitable actions though, as reported by Reuters, as Musk claims that the gifting of shares is part of his "year-end tax planning" and that the recipients have "no current intention to sell such stock."
In other words, any of the chosen mystery charities won't immediately benefit from the donation - although the stocks could very well appreciate in value over time.
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Musk has previously donated $1,950,000,000 in 2022 and around $5,740,000,000 in 2021, the latter of which was gifted to the Musk Foundation.
The Foundation's rather barebones website states that grants are given in support of causes like 'renewable energy research', 'human space exploration', 'pediatric research', 'science and engineering education', and the 'development of safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity'.
It is unclear who or which organizations have been the recipients of any grants from the Musk Foundation as of yet, although reports by Forbes indicate that Musk plans to build and operate a K-12 school alongside eventually a dedicated university in Austin, Texas with money from the Foundation.
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Musk is certainly not short of money to give away though, as the Bloomberg Billionaires Index has the Tesla, SpaceX, and X head worth around $415,000,000,000 - making him the richest individual in the world by a considerable margin.
He has seen significant financial growth following Donald Trump's US election victory as not only does he hold a key role close to Trump ahead of his presidency, but many speculate that relaxed regulations will see Musk's major companies thrive.