The richest and most prominent Effective Altruism/Longtermism exponent has lit $44,000,000,000 on fire to own his political enemies online. Was this an effective form of wealth deployment for someone who claims to have the future of humanity as his first priority? Will this person still be welcomed to the EA ranks after conducting perhaps the biggest single waste of private capital in human history? Will EA adjust their philosophy at all or just ignore this?
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by Peter_Layman
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Just FYI, while Elon Musk has participated in an EA conference and is somewhat EA-adjacent (by example by being on the board of FLI); I would say most people in the community wouldn't consider him an EA and generally don't treat him as a role model. This is my perspective based on conversations with other EAs, but it is only an impression based on limited interactions.
The money was distributed to everyone who owned Twitter stock, not burned.
Downvoting a question is a weird response. Genuinely interested in answers from adherents to this ideology and members of the group.
This doesn't read much like an actual question, as opposed to a succession of hostile statements couched as pseudo-questions. "When did you stop beating your wife?" etc.
(Also, I wouldn't describe Musk as an EA -- I'm not aware of him ever publicly identifying as such -- so I don't think EAs / "the EA community" have any special duty to publicly opine about this.)
He's endorsed MacAskill and communicated with him on this very topic. He's pledged half of his wealth toward bettering humanity on Earth, and half of it to furthering humanity on Mars. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/business/effective-altruism-elon-musk.html
https://www.inc.com/kelly-main/elon-musk-philosophy-optimism-longtermism.html
And he spoke at the Effective Altruism Global conference. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-musk-google-effective-altruism_n_55a56626e4b04740a3de3130
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Why on fire? Do you think Twitter stock will be worth much less soon? He can sell the stock at some point, hopefully after appreciation.
How much is the stock worth now? I guess you mean he could do an IPO and increase his wealth by earning a return on his $44B investment, and then use THAT money to further the cause of humanity?
OK how does that ensure the protection of humanity in the future as Musk has stated his sole aim for the use of his wealth to be