Just a reminder, these donations go to his own charities as a tax deduction.
If the charity itself is doing proper work, that makes sense tbh. I mean, if you had billions to donate, would you give it to some random ass organisation… Or set up your own thing to do things that you personally agree with?
If the charity itself is doing proper work
I would be utterly shocked if it was.
im sure its doing something like ‘raising awareness’ like all those breast cancer charities do where none of the money goes to actually helping people with breast cancer and straight into some ceo’s pocket that makes 300k a year
You’ll know when these billionaire charity trusts actually have an impact because they will do everything in their power to scream it in your ear.
I’d you want to see how it’s done, check out what his Ex-wife did with her money from the divorce
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/15/mackenzie-scott-billionaire-donations-non-profits
It’s not a charity. It’s a way to stay in control of all of your money and not pay taxes on it. You pay yourself and your children salaries from it. You have it contract with your profitable businesses. You get to use that money to decide what the world’s ideology is. You get to use it to own a segment of science itself by being where researchers need to go if they want funding. That’s what Bill Gates did with public education the last 10 years. This is how NGOs that go on to hire death squads in South America are created. And in the meantime you spend a few decimal points on a press blitz to make yourself look like a saint.
All the while Amazon keeps using the streets we pay for, the USPS we pay for, the GPS we pay for, and on and on. That money should be taxed and returned to us and we should get to decide what it’s for.
Solving inequality through taxation in a capitalist system is like being on a boat with a gaping hole in its hull and using spoons to throw that water back in the ocean. The best it can do is slow the inevitable and inspire false hope
Agreed, and I’m find with the tax deduction if the charity works they do is legit, it’s not like he is paying taxes anyway.
That’s… actually a good point.
Yeah and if he donates a majority of his wealth, thats more than he would have been taxed regardless.
This is exactly the issue. He doesn’t “donate” shit. He opens a non-profit that does nothing but funnel his fortune to his children. It’s all a sham. Same as with that other clothing company who “donated” their entire fortune.
Not sure about elsewhere, but in Canada a Charity is a special kind of non-profit that has more public oversight as to how they manage their money, and allowed to write charitable receipts. Non-profits might do some good things, but you don’t get a tax credit for donating money to them, and there’s less oversight of how they’re managed.
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Though I don’t have all day to devote to determining if these sources line up with your claims and if they’re worth a darn but I did attempt to skim.
Number 1. I dropped my subscription so I can’t view the article. Can you share?
Source 2. “The Saviorism of Melinda Gates: Eugenics, Philanthrocapitalism, and the Perils of ‘Western’ Feminisms” . This is a senior honors thesis with some pretty big claims and I’m not sure the paper presents a strong enough argument.
Mind you, Eugenics is evil dog shit steeped in racism, classism and so on. Fuck that shit.
Anyway, the author attempts to draw a line between making birth control / family planning available (to third world countries) and eugenics via population control of certain groups.
Their argument traces a very long and winding path of rather tenuous links along the way and I don’t find it very convincing. It seems more like a student grasping for straws to write a paper.
They seem to be suggesting that forced sterilization, forced sexual segregation, and similar despicable things are equivalent to ultimately voluntary family planning.
I see the point. If these programs are intended to control certain populations at a national level driven by eugenics, yeah that’s fucked.
They may have shown it is plausible that this is what the Gates Foundation has been doing but I don’t think they successfully proved it.
Source 3. Hush money… “Jeffrey Epstein allegedly tried to extort Bill Gates over extramarital affair” … yeah that’s not awesome.
Sir, this is not your Facebook conspiracy theory group.
zifnab’s comment has links to:
- The Washington Post
- A paper from Duke University
- The Guardian
These seem to me like sources that wouldn’t usually be prominent in facebook conspiracy theory groups.
Can you please tell me what the issue is with zifnab’s comment? Why do you feel like the comment would be more at home in a facebook conspiracy theory group?
Can you please tell me what the issue is with zifnab’s comment?
It makes a billionaire “good one” look bad, so they reject it.
“A paper from Duke University”. This is a random, non-peer-reviewed, undergrad honors thesis. Having supervised honors theses myself, they are not exactly the height of sociological research. Also note that the author only proposes “throughlines” between eugenics and Melinda Gates’ work, by definition flimsy and tenuous, at best.
This is a perfect example of a Facebook conspiracy theory, based on shoddy, non-peer-reviewed, amateur “research”, but appealing to authority by attributing the paper to “Duke University”, with no understanding of the academic context of the paper in question.
Can you please tell me what the issue is with zifnab’s comment? Why do you feel like the comment would be more at home in a facebook conspiracy theory group?
Jesus Christ you can smell the hexbear from a mile away. Go sealion somewhere else.
For anyone else reading this, the problems with the other two “sources” are that the WaPo article is just an opinion piece disguised as “analysis”, and the Guardian source (an editorialized version of a much better Wall Street Journal piece) seems to actually imply that Gates didn’t pay any hush money to Epstein. Either way, it does make it clear that Epstein had nothing to do with Gates’ affair whatsoever, and was just trying to profiteer off it.
Note the fact that the language used by the hexbear above effectively claims the opposite of what their source implies, and leaves out the fact that there’s no evidence for any of these assertions. Never blindly trust a source from a hexbear. Actually, never trust a “source” from a hexbear at all, for that matter.
Edit: Also, for anyone reading this, only ever comment on the errors in a hexbear’s sources and arguments - don’t ever actually engage with a hexbear themselves, because your good faith will be wasted on their disingenuousness. This comment is just a fact-checking PSA for anyone who wondered about the reliability (or lack thereof) of the above sources. Note also the bullshit asymmetry principle well at work here.
As a moderator of Hexbear, I would like to formally apologize for our users committing the Preconceived Prejudice Bias, link if you’re unfamiliar.
As we all know, multi-billionaires do not have control of our media institutions and are unable to shut down, directly or indirectly, research and investigations into their activities. They do not have the ability to portray themselves in an extremely positive light. Therefore, you are quite right to assume that all these rumors that they are committing acts like our other users implied are frankly entirely false.
I generally take a similar tack when arguing against conspiracists in Russia who argue in the Russian media that Russian oligarchs are committing evil acts in support of the war - this is obviously untrue, as if they were, they would surely be reported in reputable journals and peer-reviewed as you rightfully point out must be done before putting ANY information onto the internet. Any accusations against Putin himself are, similarly, completely bizarre - the Russian media rightfully portrays him as a shining beacon of light. All other “accusations” are from discredited media and crank Telegram and Facebook groups that oppose Putin and the oligarchs, and I am working to try and get them shut down. It’s a similar situation in China, as far as I can tell.
Have a great day, and stay classy, my good friend!
Well I guess I should apologize for myself and others making the mistake of wanting to see claims being supported by, of all things, evidence. What were we thinking?
appealing to authority by attributing the paper to “Duke University”, with no understanding of the academic context of the paper in question
Lmao you didn’t even look at the links before dismissing them you dweeb
When someone makes terse accusations and you ask them to substantiate those accusations, that’s sealioning
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Thanks for this. I wasn’t able to read the wapo article but unfortunately devoted time to the second source. It definitely reads like an undergrad thesis paper written by someone trying to make a very tenuous connection at all costs despite a paucity of solid evidence. Kind of the written version of this:
In addition to being a senior undergrad thesis it’s kind of shit. I don’t know why I spent the time to skim it but I did. I think it can be tossed right out.
Noted conspiracy rags The Washington Post, Duke University, and The Guardian
I’ll cede that the WaPo is a total shit rag, if I’m pressed to it.
It’s not a conspiracy if it’s not a crime
Honestly, I’d go for the middle option: donate to existing charities that appeal to me. I don’t want to run a charity, it sounds like a massive headache.
You’re probably a different demographic. I’d guess the kind of people that become billionaires, assuming they actually want to be philanthropic, think that they can do a better job of managing their charities than existing charities would do managing their donations.
It’s definitely fair to say I’m in the “extremely unlikely to ever be a millionaire, let alone a billionaire” demographic!
If the charity itself is doing proper work
And if the charity is donating to other charities that donate to it as part of a money laundering/tax fraud scheme, what would you say?
that makes sense tbh
It makes so much sense to be a vampire parasite that writes their own kickbacks and gets PR and praise from sycophantic media and bootlicking rubes.
i would definitely do the latter but that is not whats happening here
Because of course they do. Thanks for the additional info!
And there it is…
Also irs
I mean if you donate billions you kinda don’t want someone do a extit scam or it going to some very sketchy places… Tax reduction is a point but pretty far down the list.
And even if its for tax purposes, the money is then tied to certain purposes and will definitely do more good than as regular taxes. (and its way more than regular taxes)
Man i hate that guy but this bashing isn’t justified.
I wasn’t bashing him, just providing additional information as the headline is makes him sound like an altruistic hero “uniting humanity”. He isn’t. He will benefit from this in one way or another or else he wouldn’t do it.
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I’m so fucking sick of all these billionaires “pledging” their fortunes. “I promise to donate all my wealth when I die” then fucking do it you cowards, die already.
They donate their wealth to avoid taxes. Basically their families control the foundations, they donate and avoid a whole shit ton of taxes their next of kin get the money from the foundation.
Adam Conover did a video on it.
Now say this about Bill Gates and watch the downvotes pour in for… some reason
Eh, Gates is older and has shown more commitment to the idea than most. I still wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him but the foundation has done some good things for a long time. And maybe with fewer self-aggrandizing press stories compared to others.
How do you go and, true to the expression, really throw someone?
Does it imply throwing a human being as we’d throw a log? Perhaps a brick? I’d expect it involves a lot of physical strenght. And does it imply being from a stationary position?
Does throwing someone down a window or from a moving car or perhaps a boat count?
It intrigues me.
Left hand by the scruff, right hand by the belt, lift, swing forward, back, forward, and release. Easy :)
They give away all their money so they don’t have to give away some of their money. Then they commit crimes so their kids can… have the money they gave away to not give away.
What a take lol
That’s not how it works.
Let’s not forget, that while they “pLeDgE”, they are also literally fucking their workers at the same time and expect that it all cancels out…
Yeah, i pledge to fix all that shit i fucked up…
One night I went through Gates’ “Giving Pledge” and I compared the wealth of the people who signed on in 2010 (when they started doing this pledge to give more than half their wealth to charity thing) to their wealth now. The average increase in wealth in those 12 years was like 170%, and the total combined wealth of the 50 or so signees had gone from like 250b to almost 700b. I wanted to make an effort-post with the data and more comprehensive analysis, but I got too busy and mad about it lol.
It’s crazy how profitable “charity” is for the ultra-rich
Like, imagine if Elon Musk actually did spend all the wealth he got from profiting off of the shitshow of COVID and solved climate change. He’d be hailed as a hero and the left would be stuck eating their hats for decades to come. But no, he would rather own the libs because they convinced his daughter to join their side.
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So many of them are financing “try to live forever with vampirism” style projects so what they’re saying is they want positive PR now just in case they fail… and probably will send their hoards to their eugenics-inspired failsons later anyway.
Was just gonna say its always some vague cause instead of an actual concrete thing they’re donating to.
This is the same thing that other billionaire did with his fortune. Gave 3 billion “away” to his own charity so his kids could inherit without paying a penny in taxes.
I make under 200k and the highest bracket I hit is 51% of my salary. Warren buffet has paid less than 10% taxes on his entire fortune. They’re playing us, the new cool thing is just to say it’s for the climate.
Bezos pledged 40 billion (maybe 20, can’t remember) I believe in 2019.
To date he has actually donated less than $200 million of it IIRC to any climate-related funds.
It’s just a bold face lie, not even taking his own charity scams into account.
Edit: also side rant: I have gotten a lot of wallstreetbets armchair investors in the past saying “b-b-but muh liquid vs assets, he would crash amazon stock.”
Bezos has liquidated a minimum of $12 billion per year without even a slight blip in amazon stock. PLENTY to fulfil his pledge. People don’t understand the scale of sold shares. The stock market is completely speculative bs. If he liquidated every stock of amazon in a short time after an anouncement like this, investors would absolutely speculate that it would recover, the price would lower for a week or so while every hedge fund in existence rushes to buy every single stock that they have and voila, it would magically recover within a month and bozo would not be a complete lying scumbag. It would probably cause him to be audited though which is every bilionaire’s nightmare because they have all done such shady things and dodges so many taxes for so many years. At least if the IRS had any balls.
FYI it’s “bald-faced” lie
Hey, don’t attack the man based on his follicles!
I’m just envious that he doesn’t have to shave. It’s really tedious.
This is totally correct, but the incorrect usage is so common now that “bold face” has become arguably accepted.
Originally it was “barefaced”, I believe.
True a long time ago it was, but if we want to disregard language evolution, then it is actually “bare-faced lie” lol
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/is-that-lie-bald-faced-or-bold-faced-or-barefaced
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It’s tax “brackets”. So from say 20-30k you’re taxed ~21%, the following 30-50k you make is taxed at another amount like 30%, and so forth. The last 30k made from 160-190k is then taxed at 49% (51% because I’m taking a bit more money instead of dumping into my pension fund etc…)
And yeah it’s Canada, but in the province of Quebec, the most taxed province of all (where education is still heavily subsidized/ free for people born there etc…)…
I’ve done this whole exercise on /r/theydidthemath years ago on reddit comparing to the US, and with all the medical insurance garbage they have there like co-pays after deductibles, tax credits, dental, daycares, tolls/infrastructure etc… It amounts to roughly the same as the taxation + private insurance in the US. It just “looks worse” because it’s all mostly up front. I know ex-millionaires in the US who were basically homeless because they had a sick baby who needed to stay in the hospital for a year after birth. It cost them 5 million dollars to keep the baby alive without having to go to court with the insurer. This doesn’t happen in Canada.
I’m fine with it, I just want the rich assholes to pay the same. I live very comfortably, bought a home in February this year and have more than enough.
The thing you drug up about the US hasn’t been a thing for more than a decade. The individual out of pocket limit is $9,450 this year for an individual, and Pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care are considered “essential health benefits” so as long as it was an actual factual real health plan and not something like a health care sharing ministry, there’s no way you’re going in a millionaire and coming out destitute unless you did something phenomenally dumb like demand an NICU be built into your house. Out healthcare is broken in so many ways, but the bandaids do exist on the system.
I have no idea what his situation was, he had full healthcare. There’s the law, and then there’s bringing insurance companies to court over the law. This might have been about a decade ago.
An out-of-pocket maximum is a cap, or limit, on the amount of money you have to pay for covered health care services in a plan year.
The key word being “covered health care services”. This also does not cover their own expenses, loss of salary etc… These laws are intentionally complicated so it’s theoretically possible to be covered, but good fucking luck going through the loops.
You can still find studies that claim that over 500k people file for bankruptcy every year due to accumulating medical costs I’m sure all these people are stupid and had NICUs built in their homes…
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Eeee. Youre completing forgetting that he can BORROW against those stocks, and pay a measly interest rate, paying out when it’s convenient through various loops of the tax system. Warren Buffet, even if his worth in billions is not in his pocket, has contributed less than most relative to his income.
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Might be Canada, I’m in a similar situation and GTFOing. No way am I going to continue paying this much in tax but still lack quality education and healthcare for our kids.
Are you/your children Quebec citizens? Education and healthcare are very cheap and accessible. If you’re a foreigner here then yeah it might not be as easy. Healthcare is still free and medicine is subsidized to a minimum of 80%. Also medicine potency is regulated, knock off brands of “advil” are guaranteed to be as potent as the brand name, which is a huge plus and keeps medicine costs very low.
I have a lot of experience with the medical system in canada; my parents both died of cancer, so did my mentor, and were in treatment in the public system the same week they got diagnosed. They didn’t wait months to see specialist like is often thrown around on reddit.
Yeah instead in the US you get to pay healthcare insurance premiums instead and have the companies try every trick to deny your healthcare claims. And pay who knows how much for your kids education, tens of thousands a year. All so your marginal (not effective) tax rate is what 40% instead? I think you need to recheck your math and your outrage. Don’t forget those expenses are after tax.
Taxes. He should pay taxes.
What good does that do when government bans books, defunds schools and persuades people to become parents against their will and then cares more about corps then citizens? and breathe
Maybe the government wouldn’t do those things if they weren’t in the pocket of corporations. Corporations who buy politicians so to create tax loopholes so they don’t have to pay taxes…
the wonders of capitalism
They still would. Just look at any other country.
Why would the government be banning books because of corporations?
Lol, because money interests are united with the religious right.
Revolt.
Revolt? We haven’t even volted.
Haven’t even:
Unless he’s donating everything tomorrow, this is all bullshit.
First off he doesn’t have 124 billion. He is WORTH 124 billion, the vast majority of it being the worth of his stakes in Amazon. If he sells all his stakes in it, the Amazon worth would plummet and he’d be worth a fraction of what he’s worth today.
But lets say he has a 124 billion dollars. If he gives out 10 millions every day it will still take over 300 years. In that time his worth likely would.grow faster than he’s spending it so in 300 years he’d still be worth more than he is today.
All this charity stuff is bullshit, TAX THE RICH. Taxes will give honest amounts of money to governments who can then use that money for universal healthcare, universal education, universal income…
Sacrifice the profits of parasitic shareholders for the good of society, returning America to the level of taxation when it’s economy was great, putting the money back in the hands of the workers that keep the economy running? The workers that will spend their money, stimulating the economy (unlike shareholders)?
No - that’s impossible! Pay no attention to the 90% top tax rate implemented by Eisenhower - a goddamn Republican.
…if the governments weren’t run by the same rich psychopaths, that is…
I don’t think your math adds up.
yeah spending 10 million a day would take 34 years to add up to 124 billion
I was a favor 10 off but that doesn’t matter, the point still stands.
No single person should be ever control that much money
But while he gives away 3.65 billion a year, his remaining 120 billion appreciated to 130 billion or whatever. Then the next year he gives away 3.65 billion and his remaining 126 billion appreciated to 136 billion…
As long as he doesn’t give away more than his principal gains, it’s an indefinite loop.
governments who can then use that money for universal healthcare
Press X to doubt
Fun fact: we could having universal healthcare right now and both businesses and individuals would make more money. We don’t because voters are dumb and can’t do math.
Fun fact: it’s not that easy. It’s likely possible and likely great for everyone but it’s also an enormous undertaking that you don’t want to fail. It would take years if not decades to implement, don’t ever think it’s easy.
I’m all for it, but it’s not a “we could do it now”
It’s not that easy, which is why every comparable country does it 🤷🏻♂️
You’re right though, it wouldn’t be easy because we built a monster of a insurance industry that’s in the way that nobody wants to dismantle because muh profit
I’m all for taxing the rich but the rest of this is just pure stupidity.
Like why did you cap how much he can give away at one time lol
Try to sell all your stocks at once if you own a big chunk of all available shares. The stock price would fall faster than you were able to sell your shares.
Bezos already engages in structured stock sell-offs worth vastly more than $10MM
I didn’t cap anything. There are realistic limits to what you can give to charity. Give a charity that normally gets a few millions a billion and they won’t be able to spend it in any normal way. Breeds corruption, etc.
Charity shouldn’t even exist, as it is always this patch on holes left by governments. Tax the rich until they are “normal rich” and then use that money for projects that normally would require charity
Also, his wife actually had the exact same situation I just described. She spent millions over millions and once done she had more wealth than she started with
If only there were more than one charity, worldwide.
No.
If only governments would tax the rich properly they’d have enough money to put good social programs in place. We wouldn’t need charity.
There will always be a use of some sort of charity until we live in a post-scarcity world.
No. The government should take it from him as taxes that he avoided. So the people can decide how best to invest it instead of over egomaniac with a history is abusing his people.
To be honest, going all toward climate change seems better than what the government would use it for. That being said, he should definitely pay more taxes.
Dude for sure is going to spin up his own charities with lofty mission statements that he “donates” to which exclusively pitch solutions that require a lot of investment in his for-profit endeavors.
Don’t mistake money laundering for benevolence.
You know he’s not really giving it away, right? I bet my bottom dollar that his assets are being transferred to a fund he controls. Because the fund is categorised non-profit, it will receive max tax write-offs.
His ex-wife on the other hand, has given away butt load of money to actual charities.
Yeah if it actually goes towards climate change and “uniting humanity” that’s way better than giving it to any government.
And if it isn’t done with anti-public stuff on the side. Take bill gates, he funded a Covid vaccine which is great! But strings were attached, namely they were required to patent it. His charity consistently mandates ownership of intellectual property and partnerships with corporations. I fear something similar with bezos. You’re gonna need new technology and a push against overconsumption to do Jack shit against climate change. I fully expect him to not permit that new technology to reject patent or use a copyleft style license agreement. And I don’t believe the owner of Amazon will promote things like creating a society where we only work 20 hours and consume less low quality goods, instead opting for long lasting and repairable things that end up using less natural resources in the long run. Instead I expect him to throw billions at carbon capture, which is needed and can be done responsibly (especially if we build a strategic biofuel reserve), but is also the carbon equivalent of trying to out exercise your fork.
Jeff bezos funds a study how to fight climate change. Study finds humanity needs to decrease their usage of energy drastically and stop consumerism as we are doing it right now. Jeff bezos: (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
The US government? LOL. How much of the taxes goes to fossil fuel and corn subsidies and to the military industrial complex?
The majority of our taxes goes to social programs and healthcare. Military spending is insane, but we have to keep in mind that taxing billionaires will absolutely bring benefits to the common folks.
I agree in principle, but the government would take the money and allocate 99% of it to the military budget rather than do anything useful with it.
No, the government generally has a plan and definite budget for their money, which includes social programs and infrastructure. You can debate about how good it is, but at least it’s there.
Giving money to a charity directly controlled by them (or their kids, or one of their billionaire friends) might just make that money disappear.
“Billionaire pledges” is the same vibe as “hopes and prayers” .
Except prayers have a higher chance of changing anything.
pledges
That weasel word is tiresome.
unify humanity
Coming from a techbro vampire, that term is especially creepy.
Unify how?
UNIFY HOW?
UNIFY HOW?
UNIFY HOW?
hes pledging it straight to his own “charity” im sure
According to some
here, that’s actually cool and good.
Moving $124B from the “Fuck Around Fund” to the “Fuck Around Fund (Tax Exempt)”
Exactly.
They aren’t giving their money to other people. They’re giving their money to their own charities, either that they created or that they have some control over the board.
They get to take a deduction on their personal taxes the year that they move the money, so they move is slowly based on how much they want to limit their tax liability that year. Good year for amazon = move lots of money. Bad year where he can take a business loss = retain direct control over the cash.
Then when it comes time to spend it, they know what it’s getting spent on. Vaccines for the poor like Bill Gates? Buy up pharma stocks. Climate change initiatives? Buy up stock in carbon capture companies, solar companies, etc.
They make this money back, and they get a benefit every time it moves.
All that plus they control even more stuff, which is all they care about at that level of wealth.
I’ll believe that if his plan is to unify humanity under his rule.
I pledge to not post this comment…whoops, darn, oh well. I tried.
bezos is a cuntasaurus, I’ll never forget when Shatner was trying to share his feelings about the genuine experience of going into space, and cuck-lord bezo not only interrupts shatner, he sullies the moment by acting like a sore winner
I’ve hated bozos since forever, but this right here was unforgivable. Shatner trying to give inspiration after a really being in space, after a lifetime of being an icon? You fucking listen
Cool start by “donating” it to Amazon employees.
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If he doesn’t do it, don’t give him credit for doing it. If he does, be sure it’s not some incestuous Nonprofit moneylaundering scheme like those foundations usually do.
be sure it’s not some incestuous Nonprofit moneylaundering scheme like those foundations usually do
BUT BILL GATES IS ONE OF THE GOOD ONES
Lots of credulous rubes believe that Epstein’s buddy Bill Gates is one of the good ones because they attended a school that was “reformed” by the dynamic duo.
It’s all fucking BS and theatrics, it’s easy to promise shit AFTER YOU DIE.
Way to make people root for your death
Yeah, let’s go! We should start posting: Jeff, die already, we need that funding.
Yea, unless he liqidates his assets and donates it right now, get t he e fuck outta here
lol you are a silly person. You must think if he liquidated his asset he will walk away with $124 billion dollar, don’t you? So silly… lol Once he is caught selling his stocks, so will the market sell theirs, and his stock will become worth pennies in no time, before he even clears his first stock-block sale. None of these billionaires are worth the tag assigned to them, that is a market value so long they stay in the game lol
What that means is he will invest that much in energy related projects during the course of his life. He did this the last time as well. He is not giving his money away. We are just used to turd ass quality journalism.
