Elon Musk may be one of the richest people to ever walk the face of the Earth, but he still takes issue with what other people—like wealthy women—do with their money.
In a since-deleted tweet, Elon Musk went after Mackenzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, for her philanthropic efforts. When responding to a user who noted that Scott had been giving money to organizations that “deal with issues of race and/or gender,” he fired back, “‘Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse should be listed among ‘Reasons that Western Civilization died.'”
It seems like an odd bone to pick, but it’s not the first time Musk has taken issue with how Scott spends her fortune. In 2022, he noted he’d be voting Republican and claimed the Democratic Party was unfair to his companies, Tesla and Space X, adding that he believed Scott’s charitable donations played a part. “It’s safe to say that MacKenzie [ahem] Scott is not exactly a big fan of her ex-husband. Unfortunately, a lot of others are getting caught in the crossfire,” Musk wrote in an X post at the time.
Scott has given away $16 billion since 2019, and she plans to continue her philanthropic efforts, saying she will give away half of her total wealth. Last March, the philanthropist opened a process for groups to apply to receive funding with the intent to grant $1 million to 250 organizations, and over 6,300 nonprofits applied.
We don’t hear Musk going after his fellow billionaire men’s spending habits, but Scott’s money moves ruffle his feathers. And it’s not just Musk—others also seem to have a problem with rich women. Recently, Taylor Swift’s billionaire status was questioned on Open to Debate.
“No matter how amazing a person Taylor Swift is, she shouldn’t be a billionaire because nobody should be a billionaire,” argued Ingrid Robeyns, the chair in ethics of institutions at Utrecht University’s Ethics Institute, and author of Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth. “We focus here on an individual, but really the bigger question is: What kind of society do we want?”
But why is it that it took a woman—Taylor Swift, who reached billionaire status after the success of her Eras Tour—to bring out this debate? While the unequal distribution of wealth in America might be deeply problematic for a wide variety of reasons, poverty being one of them, women make up only a small percentage (around 12%, according to research firm Wealth-X) of the billionaire club.
Wealthy women also seem to use their wealth more altruistically than men. Research from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy found that women are more likely to donate to charity, and they give larger donations when they do. In fact, a major example of a billionaire woman giving her money away was in the headlines recently when a former professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx gave $1 billion to the school, to ensure free tuition for students.
Still, it’s wealthy women who seem to be up for debate, both in terms of how they spend their wealth and whether they deserve it in the first place. And coming from one of the richest men on the planet, it’s even more confusing and a bit harder to stomach. Perhaps wealthy men like Musk are worried about what a more equal distribution of wealth means if billionaires give too much away? Or are they concerned that wealthy women might disrupt expectations around the mega-rich?
Either way, Musk certainly has enough dollars to his own name to worry about. Perhaps he should leave Scott’s name, and her philanthropy, out of his tweets, and focus on his own deep pockets.
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