If you were a billionaire, would you join Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates in the The Giving Pledge?
According to Bloomberg.com, Warren Bufftett has been joined by 12 other families in pledging the majority of their wealth to charity:
The families include hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman and his wife Karen, Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA)’s billionaire owner Elon Musk and film producer Steve Bing, according to an e-mailed statement from the initiative.
Arthur M. Blank, Edgar M. Bronfman, Glenn and Eva Dubin, Red and Charline McCombs, Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman, John and Ginger Sall, Henry and Susan Samueli, John A. and Susan Sobrato, John Michael Sobrato, and Ted and Vada Stanley also signed the pledge.
Huffington Post reports:
[Bill]Gates and Buffett, the world’s second and third richest people respectively according to Bloomberg, started the pledge as an invitation to the country’s wealthiest — billionaires only — to give more than half of their money to charity. Among the notable billionaires to sign on is Mark Zuckerberg, who pledged in December 2010.
Given the great need in our world, and the incredibly disparate distribution of wealth in this country, this seems like an amazing thing… Billionaires peer pressuring one another to join in on the giving.
But what do you think? Is peer pressuring one another to give a good thing? Or does telling someone you’re doing a good thing just showing off?
If you were a billionaire, who would you give your billions to?
Photo: AP/Seth Wenig