Elon Musk donated roughly $5.7 billion in shares of Tesla to an unnamed charity late final 12 months, in response to new filings with the SEC and a report from the Wall Street Journal. But one huge query stays: Who received the cash?

Right across the identical time as his newly publicized charitable donation in late 2021, Musk offered about $16 billion value of Tesla inventory, one thing he claimed would create one of many larges tax payments in historical past for the billionaire. But the revelation of Musk’s massive charitable donation would possibly change that, given the very fact that cash handed to many charities could be written off at tax time.

The $5.7 billion in donations have been made in 5 funds between November 19 and November 29, 2021, in response to the SEC paperwork, and facilitated by a belief. Donations of inventory are valued for the IRS based mostly on their value on the time of donation, but that identical $5.7 billion value of inventory is simply value about $4.4 billion at this time given Tesla’s plunging inventory value.

The two more than likely candidates for Musk’s donations are the billionaire’s private charity basis, and the United Nations World Food Program—the latter of which made headlines in late October when its director stated Musk might save 42 million folks from hunger with simply 2% of his wealth.

“The governments are tapped out. This is when the billionaires need to step up now on a one-time basis—$6 billion to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don’t reach them. It’s not complicated,” UN government director for the World Food Program, David Beasley, instructed CNN on the time.

Musk replied on social media that he’d donate to this system if it might clear up world starvation for good, one thing that Beasley by no means claimed might be carried out with a one-off donation. But the World Food Program declined to inform information organizations if Musk has made any donation.

The different seemingly attainable recipient of Musk’s cash is his personal basis, which was arrange in 2002. The Musk Foundation awards grants for issues like renewable vitality analysis and artificial intelligence growth, amongst different issues, although the design of its web site is sort of laughably bad and Musk has been extremely stingy about giving cash to his personal charity in the past.

But, once more, wherever he put his cash, that is prone to offset Musk’s tax invoice for 2021, in response to the Wall Street Journal:

Donations of appreciated inventory are notably engaging for rich folks. The forgone capital positive aspects aren’t taxed. The worth of the inventory is a charitable deduction, topic to limits. And the inventory comes out of the particular person’s taxable property.

Elon Musk is at the moment value about $242 billion, according to Forbes, making him the wealthiest particular person on the planet. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, the second wealthiest, is at the moment value about $179 billion.