Wealthy elites in Silicon Valley have started splashing their cash.
More than a decade ago, a handsome young man who graduated from the University of Oxford stood in front of the grocery store shelf, hesitating over which brand of breakfast cereal to buy. He was doing the math in his head: if he insisted on buying the cheaper brand for a whole year, would the money he saved be enough to save a human life?
This man is William MacAskill, a British philosopher who later became a key advocate of Effective Altruism. The core of this ideology is to invest limited resources in matters that can generate the maximum social benefit, and use rational analysis and effect evaluation as much as possible to make every dollar help more people.
Nowadays, Effective Altruism has become a highly influential ideological trend in the Silicon Valley tech circle. For some entrepreneurs and investors in the AI field in particular, they believe that technological progress can not only create huge wealth, but also bring major risks related to the future of humanity. How to ensure AI safety and how to deal with the impact of technology on employment and social structure have become issues that this group of tech elites pay close attention to.
The new generation of tech billionaires in the United States have already taken some measures. Anthropic, the AI company that is about to complete the largest IPO in history, announced a special arrangement one week before its listing: 5% of the company's shares will be injected into the newly established Anthropic Public Benefit Fund. According to external expectations for its IPO valuation, the potential value of this equity stake could reach tens of billions of US dollars, but this is not a cash donation that has been cashed out. The fund can also obtain more shares as the company's valuation grows, at the discretion of the board of directors. Anthropic stated that the specific valuation benchmarks and governance arrangements will be disclosed later.
The day after the news was released, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, posted on X that he plans to give one share of SpaceX stock to every child in the United States starting from 2027, adding that this is only "the first step in many plans". Based on the scale of about 72 million minors in the United States and the then price of about 146 US dollars per share of SpaceX stock, the potential value of this plan is estimated to be about 10.5 billion US dollars.
These billionaires who have created huge wealth through technology are devoting great efforts to caring for the fate of humanity, and they attempt to justify their acquisition of wealth through philanthropic acts. These practices are different from traditional philanthropic acts: instead of simply using wealth as resources to give back to the society directly, just like what billionaires used to do by donating money, supplies, building schools and libraries, they often choose social problems with long-term potential returns, set measurable goals, amplify influence through capital, technology and talents, allow failures, and adjust resource allocation according to results.
Does that sound a little like doing venture capital?
And this is exactly based on the core of Effective Altruism: resources should flow to places that can generate the maximum social benefit. But the problem is that the benefits and risks of technological progress are not always borne by the same group of people. An AI technology may significantly improve the overall productivity of the society, but it may also make some workers lose their jobs. Simply calculating the total benefits brought by technology cannot answer who should bear the losses and how the growth achievements should be shared.
This also leads the problem to a deeper level: when a few enterprises control AI models, computing power and capital, can ordinary people only wait for enterprises or billionaires to decide how to compensate them? Can they participate in the distribution of wealth created by technology, and even become the owners of this wealth?
When Donation Becomes Part of the Corporate Capital Structure
On October 26, Anthropic officially submitted its prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), planning to land on the Nasdaq under the stock code ANT. According to estimates by market institutions and investors, its IPO valuation may reach 1.5 to 2 trillion US dollars. If this valuation is realized, Anthropic is expected to refresh the IPO record of the global capital market, and this company will even surpass the annual gross domestic product of many countries in the world.
Anthropic mentioned in its prospectus that the AI technology it is developing may pose a catastrophic or existential risk to humanity. Documents show that all co-founders of the company have made a commitment to use 80% of their personal Anthropic equity for philanthropic causes. In January this year, co-founder Dario Amodei mentioned in an open letter that the rich have a responsibility to help workers and their families who will be left behind in the AI era.
As mentioned earlier, Anthropic proposed to set up a public welfare fund one week before the prospectus was made public, but the fund is established in the form of a limited liability company instead of a traditional non-profit organization, so as to retain flexibility between different donation methods. The company also stated that the equity held by the fund will not be used for lobbying or political donations.
Elon Musk, who also created one of the largest IPOs in history, does not agree with Anthropic's arrangement. After Anthropic announced the public welfare fund plan, he directly replied under the relevant post: "I suggest giving the shares directly to the public." Then Musk put forward his stock gift plan, but this is a personal commitment, and no specific implementation details have been announced so far, including the qualification scope of the recipient children, the method of stock transfer, and whether there is a lock-up period.
Different from Anthropic's unified management of equity through a public welfare fund, Musk's proposal is to distribute corporate shares directly to the public. Recipients will not only get one-time cash, but also become shareholders of SpaceX, sharing the capital gains that the company may generate in the future, while taking the risk of stock price fluctuations.
Musk's commitment also has a special background. In June 2026, SpaceX completed its listing, becoming one of the most high-profile IPOs in the global capital market that year, raising about 85.7 billion US dollars in funds. After the company went public, the shares held by Musk had a clearer market pricing. The stocks he proposed to give away this time are SpaceX stocks held by individuals, not funds directly taken out by SpaceX.
Before Musk, Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX, had made a similar arrangement. In July 2026, she and her husband promised to give SpaceX stocks to more than 2 million children, mainly targeting low-income families in Texas. Based on the stock price at that time, the value of this donation was estimated to be about 320 million US dollars. Reports show that this part of the shares accounts for about one-fifth of the Class A shares that Shotwell holds or has the right to purchase. The scale of her donation is much smaller than that of Musk, but she also chose to transfer corporate equity directly instead of donating cash.
Compared with Anthropic and SpaceX, the approach of Michael Dell, founder of Dell Technologies, is much more straightforward. Last year, he and his wife Susan Dell promised to donate 6.25 billion US dollars to inject 250 US dollars into the investment accounts of 25 million children in the United States respectively. These accounts belong to the Trump Account program launched by the U.S. government, which aims to establish long-term investment accounts for children. The Dells' funds are mainly targeted at children in qualified low-income areas.
Different from Musk's gift of SpaceX stock, what the Dells promised is cash funds, which enter children's accounts through family philanthropic arrangements, not directly allocated by Dell Technologies. The funds in the accounts will be used for long-term investment, and children can obtain corresponding assets after they reach adulthood. This method combines philanthropic donation with personal asset accumulation, so that beneficiaries not only get immediate relief, but also have the opportunity to share the long-term returns of the capital market.
Putting these donations together, we can find that some new changes have taken place in the philanthropic methods of Silicon Valley tech billionaires.
First of all, the donated assets have expanded from cash to corporate equity. The Dells provided cash, Musk and Shotwell chose to transfer SpaceX stocks, and Anthropic put the company's shares into the public welfare fund. The value of equity will change with the development of the enterprise, so the scale of donation is linked to the future growth of the enterprise.
Secondly, the timing of donation has been advanced. Traditional philanthropy usually takes place after wealth accumulation, when billionaires transfer the cashed-out wealth to foundations or non-profit organizations. Anthropic's approach is to include part of the equity in the public welfare arrangement when the company is still in a period of rapid growth and has not completed its IPO. Donation is no longer just the distribution at the end of wealth, but has begun to become part of the corporate capital structure.
Furthermore, the benefit methods are no longer limited to traditional philanthropic institutions. The Dells inject funds into children's investment accounts, Musk proposes to give stocks directly to children, and Anthropic leaves room for distributing funds to specific groups in the future. Beneficiaries have the opportunity to hold assets directly and participate in the long-term growth of enterprises and the capital market.
This change is not just a personal choice of a few billionaires. The corporate structure of OpenAI provides another reference. After the reorganization was completed in 2025, the original non-profit organization was renamed OpenAI Foundation and holds about 26% of the equity of the for-profit OpenAI Group. According to the valuation at that time, this part of the equity was worth about 130 billion US dollars. The foundation also retains control over OpenAI Group and can appoint and replace board members. This is not a new fortune donated by a certain founder, but through the corporate governance structure, the non-profit organization holds the rights and interests of the commercial company and participates in the decision-making of the enterprise's direction.
Who Decides the Wealth Distribution of Ordinary People
It is not new for billionaires to be keen on philanthropy. In 1889, steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie published *The Gospel of Wealth*, putting forward the well-known view later: "The man who dies rich dies disgraced."
In Carnegie's view, the industrial society will inevitably lead to wealth concentration. It is not a bad thing for a few people to accumulate huge wealth with their business capabilities. The real problem lies in how this wealth is disposed of in the end. He opposed the rich to leave their property to their descendants to squander, and did not agree to donate wealth after death. He advocated that the rich should take the responsibility of wealth managers during their lifetime, and use private wealth to build public utilities such as libraries, universities and hospitals, so as to turn wealth into social resources.
This set of ideas laid an important foundation for the modern philanthropy in the United States. Since then, industrial giants such as Rockefeller and Ford have successively established large foundations, and private wealth has begun to enter the public domain in an institutionalized way. A logic that has continued to this day has also taken shape: wealth can be created and possessed by a few people, but the rich have the responsibility to decide how to give back part of it to the society.
More than a century has passed, and this logic is changing.
The philanthropy of traditional industrial giants mainly focuses on social feedback after wealth accumulation. They donate to build schools, hospitals and public facilities to improve public services. But the situation faced by today's tech billionaires is different. The technology they create itself can become a force that changes wealth distribution and social structure.
Especially AI. It is not just a new commercial track, but can also change the production methods of enterprises, employment opportunities and income sources of workers, and readjust the relationship between capital and labor. This also gives tech billionaires new ideas about philanthropy: they believe that they not only have the right to decide how to make money, but also should have the right to decide how to spend money and what problems the society should prioritize to solve.
Behind this idea is the long-standing tech-optimism in Silicon Valley, which believes that technological innovation can solve social problems, and that a few people with professional knowledge, capital and execution capabilities can promote social progress more effectively than traditional institutions. In such a value system, entrepreneurs are not only wealth creators, but also endowed with the role of social problem solvers.
Effective Altruism further provides a methodology for this role. It emphasizes that doing good deeds should not only depend on the subjective willingness of donors, but also measure the actual effect that the funds can produce. Cost-benefit comparisons should be made between different philanthropic projects, and resources should be invested in fields that can generate greater social benefits. This concept introduces evaluation methods such as scientific research, data analysis and investment return into philanthropic decision-making.
Longtermism extends this thinking to the more distant future. It believes that the interests of future generations are equally worthy of attention, and the current choices of humanity may affect the fate of hundreds of years or even longer in the future. William MacAskill systematically expounded this view in *What We Owe the Future*. According to this logic, issues such as AI out of control, major technological risks and the long-term survival of humanity may have higher priority than many immediate social problems.
The combination of these two ideas has changed the allocation method of philanthropic resources. Donors no longer just give money to traditional philanthropic institutions and then let the recipients decide how to use it, but try to intervene in the whole process like investors: find problems worth solving, judge technical paths, select execution teams, measure project effects, and continue to invest according to actual progress.
This is also the core feature of the so-called "Philanthrocapitalism". It brings the management methods, performance standards and investment logic of the business world into the field of philanthropy. Philanthropy is no longer just the transfer of wealth from private accounts to the public domain, but has begun to become a way to actively allocate resources and influence the direction of social development.
Therefore, the philanthropic actions of tech billionaires do not happen completely outside the business. It is closely linked to their source of wealth, industrial interests and judgment of the future. Anthropic's injection of part of its equity into the public welfare fund is a response to the social impact of AI, and also an arrangement for the distribution of future benefits in advance in the corporate capital structure. Musk's proposal to give SpaceX stocks to children also attempts to link personal wealth with the public's sharing of corporate growth.
But when billionaires take the initiative to participate in the distribution of social wealth, who on earth has given them such power?
Rob Reich, a professor of political science at Stanford University, proposed in *Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better* that large private philanthropic foundations do not naturally conform to democratic values. They can turn private wealth into public influence, but they do not need to accept elections, public deliberation and the same level of accountability as the government. Donors not only decide how much money to give, but also can decide which problems are worthy of priority, which research should get funds, and which groups should benefit first.
This is precisely the most noteworthy part of tech philanthropy. The ability to create wealth does not naturally equal the qualification to determine public interests. A person can become a billionaire by virtue of business judgment, but he does not necessarily have the legitimacy to judge the development direction of the whole society. Especially when AI may affect the work, income and life of hundreds of millions of ordinary people, the participation of technology owners in distribution through private foundations and public welfare projects cannot replace broader public discussion and institutional arrangements.
Ordinary people's participation in wealth distribution usually goes through institutional arrangements such as taxation, fiscal budget, public policy and social security. Although these mechanisms are not perfect, there are at least public discussions and institutional constraints. The decision-making power of private philanthropic foundations is highly concentrated in the hands of donors and their management teams. Billionaires can choose what technology to fund, what research to support and what problems to solve by virtue of their wealth. Their influence may even extend to government policies and industrial development. This creates a paradox: the more likely technological progress is to affect everyone, the more concentrated the power to determine the direction of technological development may be in the hands of a few people.
Who Ultimately Owns the Productivity Gains Brought by AI?
No matter it is distributing money or distributing shares, what needs to be clarified first is that private philanthropy and public finance are never the same resource allocation mechanism.
Public finance is formed through taxation, and in principle, budget expenditure needs to go through legislative procedures, public discussion and audit supervision. Government decision-making may be slow and inefficient, but there is at least a relatively clear public accountability channel. Private philanthropy is different. Donors can set the purpose of the fund according to their own value judgment, decide the investment direction of funds and beneficiaries, and can adjust or even terminate the project. Even if the funds are used for public utilities, the decision-making process may not be open to the public.
Political scholar Rob Reich has discussed this issue. He pointed out that the rich can turn private wealth into public influence through philanthropic donations, but they do not need to be restricted by democratic procedures like the government. The larger the scale of philanthropy and the far-reaching its impact, the more worthy of scrutiny the ability of private wealth to shape public issues.
In the AI era, this contradiction is further amplified. When an AI company like Anthropic participates in deciding how to compensate for the losses caused by technological changes, to what extent can it represent the affected workers? Musk's proposal to give SpaceX stocks to children also attempts to let the public share the benefits of corporate growth. But for those who do not get stocks, and those who may lose their jobs and income due to technological changes, how can this arrangement provide protection?
I think one of the keys to solving these problems lies in who ultimately owns the productivity gains brought by AI. If the new income is mainly converted into corporate profits and shareholder returns, then taking out part of the wealth through philanthropic donation afterwards cannot solve the problem of how the whole society shares the achievements of technological progress. Donation can help some people, but it cannot replace labor security, tax system and social welfare system, let alone change the ownership structure that has been formed in the process of wealth creation.
Effective Altruism emphasizes that limited resources can generate maximum social benefits through rational calculation and effect evaluation. But when tech enterprises