SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk challenged the Executive Director for United Nations World Food Programme, David Beasley on his statement “2% of Elon Musk’s wealth” will be enough to solve the world hunger problem. According to Bloomberg, Musk is the world’s richest man with an estimated net worth of $289 billion, accounting for 2% of his wealth stands around 6 billion dollars.
In response to his assertions shared on Twitter by Dr Eli David, researcher, Musk tweeted that he is ready to sell stocks immediately if World Food Programme can explain how it can solve the world hunger problem. “But it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent,” Musk added in another tweet.
On being questioned by Elon Musk, Beasley was quick to reply and said, “we’ve never said 6 Billion dollars would solve world hunger but it will prevent geopolitical instability, mass migration and save 42 million lives during this unprecedented hunger crisis” and that the 8.4 billion being referred to by Eli covers what the WFP needed to reach 115 million people in 2020 with food assistance.
Beasley assuring Musk that WFP has a system in place for transparency and open source accounting, added that his team can review and work with WFP to be confident about this. He further said, “With your help, we can bring hope, build stability and change the future” and invited for talks to have a conversation on the same.
