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Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

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Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#311

Post by ensignavenger »

brookst wrote: post #123
ensignavenger wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you would be violating the law.

Not necessarily. Plenty of rich peoples’ charities are incredibly inefficient at their stated purpose, good for their owners, and legal. Consider an imaginary tobacco tycoon’s charity that promotes cigarette use. It would be 100% legal.

First, you can't actually "own" a 501c3, you can control it. Second, a 501c3 can be beneficial to its donors or controllers, but:

"The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization's net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transaction with a person having substantial influence over the organization, an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any organization managers agreeing to the transaction."

A charity that promotes peace on earth may be beneficial to the donors to the charity... but if "optimized for my personal benefit" it is likely to be non-tax-exempt... but I suppose we could debate the exact words used and what they really mean in theory. I think in the above tobacco scenario, the IRS and courts would likely find that the tobacco promotion was merely advertising, and therefore subject to taxation.

https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organiz...

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#312

Post by makeitdouble »

twodave wrote: post #253
makeitdouble wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent's point is probably that their government should change opinion on the matter and tax contributions to your own organizations. Musk's behavior being currently legal or incentifized is kinda beyond the point.

I'm aware of that. I'm adding on that just because Musk has a lot of money shouldn't have anything to do with the laws. In my opinion, if he's not allowed to benefit indirectly from his charitable contributions then neither should the average churchgoer.

“rules are different for you because you have a lot of money” is a concept we can’t get rid of. Trying to make it irrelevant is exactly why people throw money at ethical issues and socially disruptive behaviors, and get away with it unscathed.

When street parking laws have nothing to do with wether you’re rich or not, that becomes an issue. Charitable contributions having nothing to do with it is (to me) an issue.

TBH I’m atheist, so my sympathy for churgoer tax breaks is limited, but I’d argue donation to orgs that benefit yourself shouldn’t be tax free in general. To take a silly example: if my street looked like a garbage slum and I made a non profit to make it look gorgeous, while there might be wider communal impacts, it’s something I and the street residents should have been doing anyway, and with no tax break involved.

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#313

Post by boringg »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #299
boringg wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh but most people think how it works is you give away all your money and if you don't do that you aren't very charitable. However the smart way to donate is keep principal alive and any money that money makes it goes to the charity therefore ensuring money in perpetuity. You bring up the challenge in the current environment.

"smart"? I'm not so sure. That assumes doing good deeds later (forever later really) is more valuable than doing them now/soon.

Id say being able to fund people to work on a problem over a long haul has a lot of value. Theres obvious short term needs and funding that is also important.

I guess it also depends on how that money is making money

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#315

Post by Retric »

DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote: post #304
tdeck wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is nepotism. They're drawing a salary, not volunteering to "do good". Why were they qualified for that position? It's obviously because they're a family member.

So you want to ban family businesses? Grandma needs to interview for her job making perogies? The daughter needs to do a coding test to prove that she's qualified run the cashier over other candidates?

Is the company public or organization give charitable stats? If so that puts a different spin on things.

If you don’t want any strings, then don’t ask for a handout from the taxpayers.

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#316

Post by tdeck »

DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote: post #304
tdeck wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is nepotism. They're drawing a salary, not volunteering to "do good". Why were they qualified for that position? It's obviously because they're a family member.

So you want to ban family businesses? Grandma needs to interview for her job making perogies? The daughter needs to do a coding test to prove that she's qualified run the cashier over other candidates?

Who's talking about banning anything? Were you under the impression that nepotism is a crime?

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#317

Post by 93po »

richbell wrote: post #276
93po wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where's the equal or louder negative attention for billionaires who profit off death and destruction? That use actual slave labor for their projects that result in tens of thousands of deaths? That wreck the environment without consequence? That promote harm and violence to disadvantaged groups? That exploit child labor? The issue is clearly not that Musk says dumb shit on Twitter and missed a deadline for his pickup…

> Where's the equal or louder negative attention for billionaires who profit off death and destruction? That use actual slave labor for their projects that result in tens of thousands of deaths? That wreck the environment without consequence? That promote harm and violence to disadvantaged groups? That exploit child labor? The sad reality is that these egregious human rights violations often fly under the radar becau…

Literally everything you're saying is wildly biased hyperbole or just outright unsubstantiated. I can't take this back and forth seriously if you're going to come it in such bad faith

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#318

Post by 93po »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #308
93po wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes no sense. Tell us how Musk comes out ahead financially in this situation.

He gets to donate money to "charity" and still controls who benefits from it. The donation reduces their tax burden and they still benefit from the power of wielding said money, with some additional strings.

You really think the richest man on the planet is doing weird little non-profit loopholes to wield power? You think having $6 billion in his non-profit has any impact whatsoever on his ability to influence things with his money? None of this puts him ahead financially and there is zero benefit to him doing this for "tax avoidance" if his main motive is maintaining as much money (and resulting power) as possible.

I find it god damn hilarious that Elon setting aside billions of dollars for non-profit work still manages to rile people up enough to suggest he's just being an asshole and doing it for selfish reasons

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#319

Post by 93po »

coliveira wrote: post #300
93po wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoiding paying taxes by spending even more money that he can no longer use for himself? There is no way to financially come out ahead by donating to charity.

You didn't think this through. There is little charity in a private foundation: besides the immediate tax breaks the billionaires receive, the foundation is required to spend only 5% of its endowment on things that are remotely related to charity. The rest of the money is used like always: to buy assets, like stocks. These assets are in practice still controlled by the owner of the foundation. For example, Gates has…

Let me get this straight. Elon donated $6 billion in Tesla shares to his non-profit... so that his non-profit could buy Tesla shares to prop up his stock price? This makes zero sense.

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#320

Post by jonfw »

93po wrote: post #263
jonfw wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I gave you complete control over a billion dollars in a "charity", don't you think (if you were so inclined) you would be able to find plenty of ways to spend that money in a way that would benefit you? I.E.- I might buy a house, and then have my charity buy a huge amount of land around it as an investment, to effectively turn my 1 acre homesite into a 100 acre estate Maybe I'd have my charity teach at-risk childr…

All of that combined for the rest of Musk's life wouldn't even get close to 1% of his total contribution.

How about his children and his children’s children? You can inherit control of a foundation you know
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