Melinda Gates is worth approximately US$30 billion apparently. And Mackenzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, is worth US$42 billion. They are both philanthropists, focused on women and girls' welfare.

If they really care so much about women's welfare, why didn't they put their money where their mouth is? This question goes for other progressive billionaires in the US too. If they, along with some of their friends had pooled their money together, they could have bought Twitter (and maybe even mainstream news organizations like The Washington Post).

Twitter was a hugely influential resource for the global center-left, and now it has become a source of far-right indoctrination. Elon Musk took a huge risk when he bought Twitter, but it has paid off for him and the global far-right - not in a monetary sense, but in the sense that they were able to take that space away from the left, which I think was their objective in the first place. The right wing seems to be so much more committed, and willing to spend their money to achieve their political objectives, whereas the left (or center-left, or just democracy-loving people) seem so lame in comparison. What gives?

Originally Posted By u/GrouchyInstance At 2025-04-11 11:47:43 PM | Source

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[–] olivecrest@lemm.ee 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So the right way to be a billionaire is to do exactly what Gates does - make a charitable foundation and use that to do your “common good” work.

You can have access to all and control of that money AND invest and spend it wisely AND not worry about taxes.. just set up a charitable foundation that you control. Sure there are limits to how you spend it - but if your intention is to do stuff for the common good anyways = totally easy to do “help people” stuff with charitable foundation money.

Technically that money belongs to the foundation, not to Gates. When he dies the money stays with the foundation and continues to do good stuff.

I cannot think of any non selfish reason for one person to have that much money. If they want to do good with the money they will set up a charitable foundation because that is a much more effective way to accomplish good things with their funds.

If they keep the money as their own it is fair to assume they fall in the “billionaire bad” category, because if they were planning to use it for the common good they would put it in a foundation they control and spend it from there.

[–] Quadhammer@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Charitable foundation is also kinda morally grey because they could do fuck all to help anything and still be used as a shell for tax evasion