Elon Musk says he will sell Tesla stock immediately if the United Nations can prove that $6billion would solve the problem of world hunger.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO mentioned in an interview with CNN, where UN World Food Programme (WFP) director David Beasley challenged the ultra-wealthy to ‘step up now, on a one-time basis’ to help solve world hunger.
Beasley challenged Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pecifically, saying during the interview last week: ‘$6billion to help 42million people that are literally going to die if we don’t reach them. It’s not complicated.’
That amount would equal roughly 2% of Musk’s net wealth.
Musk took to Twitter on Sunday to respond to the challenge, saying, ‘If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6billion will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.’
‘But it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent,’ Musk added.
Beasley replied to Musk’s post to Twitter, promising the WFP has the systems in place for transparency and open source accounting.
His interview follows a tweet he wrote last month, calling on Musk and Bezos to aid in the world hunger issue.
According to the WFP director, if the world’s top 400 billionaires chipped in, it would take just .36% of their total net worth to prevent famine, an issue affecting 43 nations globally.
‘This is just heartbreaking,’ Beasley said. ‘I am not asking them to do this every day, every week, every year. We have a one time crisis, a perfect storm, on conflate climate change and Covid. It’s a one time phenomenon.’
Beasley added: ‘The world’s in trouble and you’re telling me you can’t give me .36% of your net worth increase to help the world in trouble, in times like this? What if it was your daughter starving to death? What if it was your family starving to death? Wake up, smell the coffee, and help.’
As of Monday, Musk had a net worth of $311billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, making him the richest man in the world.
Beasley asked Musk for help again through a tweet on Monday.
‘Instead of tweets, allow me to show you. We can meet anywhere – Earth or space – but I suggest in the field where you can see (World Food Programme)’s people, processes and yes, technology, at work,’ Beasley said.