​Elon Musk Says It's Hard To Give Away Money Effectively

Döpfner asked the entrepreneur about the 'goals' of the Musk Foundation, set up in 2002 by Musk and his brother Kimbal.

Musk said: "I do want to emphasise that SpaceX and Tesla fundamentally intend to improve the quality of the future. Especially in terms of usefulness to humanity.

"Tesla by accelerating sustainable energy. And SpaceX by making multiplanetary intercourse possible. This is more than I can do myself.

"When it comes to donations, I'd say it is very difficult to give away money effectively. If you care about the reality of doing good and not the perception of doing good, then it is very hard to give away money effectively. I care about reality. Perception be damned."

He said he is 'always looking for ways to give money away that are effective', adding: "There's obviously environmental causes, there is education, especially science and engineering education. Paediatric healthcare.

"Hunger these days is more of a political and logistics problem than it is not having enough food. There is a lot of food. In the US and many countries, the issue is more obesity than it is hunger."

Musk may currently be the richest man on the planet, but he's also currently on track to become the world's first trillionaire in just two years.

The study explained: "We analysed the net worth of the richest 30 people in the world according to Forbes and recorded the last six years of data from current standings back to 2017.

"All data was retrieved on 19/01/2020.

"Out of these 30, we excluded those without a minimum of five years of data and who therefore did not have enough data for us to calculate a reliable annual average rate of growth.

"We then calculated the average yearly % growth rate for each member over the last six years and extrapolated this to give predicted data for the next 30 years.

"From this, we predicted who would be the first to reach trillionaire status and at what age."