Free Republic

Philanthropy among the world's wealthiest is under renewed scrutiny as donors debate what meaningful generosity looks like…difficulty comes from trying to ensure donations create real impact rather than good publicity, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said. "The biggest challenge I find with my foundation is trying to give money away in a way that is truly beneficial to people," Musk said on the "WTF is" podcast, hosted by Nikhil Kamath. He added that it is easy to give money away "to get the appearance of goodness" and much harder to reach "the reality of goodness." The Musk Foundation's philanthropy — roughly...

The accused Hamas sympathizer is shrouded in mystery—and so are his supporters. As it unfurls, the saga of Mahmoud Khalil—the Columbia agitator picked up by immigration enforcement last week—looks less like a complicated immigration-law dispute and more like something out of a John le Carré novel. But inspect the details, and Khalil’s case gives us a glimpse a well-established network linking American universities, international progressive NGOs, and government agencies. This network places ideologues like Khalil in positions of power and influence and promoting radical policies that challenge both the will of American voters and our national-security interests. As always in...

The ex-wife of billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott, has dumped the majority of her whopping $640 million in donations to left-wing causes. Scott announced she donated $640 million to 361 nonprofits through her philanthropic organization, Yield Giving. Two hundred seventy-nine nonprofits received $2 million from Scott, while two organizations were gifted $1 million each.

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has filed for divorce from her second husband, science teacher Dan Jewett, in a puzzling and unexplained move. Scott, who recently removed all mention of her husband from websites outlining her charity initiatives, filed for divorce in Washington State on Monday, according the New York Times. According to the petition, a division of property will be 'laid out in a separation contract' that Scott and Jewett agree upon. The contract is not public. Jewett did not contest the divorce, court records said.

The ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos just donated a record $275 million to the abortion giant Planned Parenthood. AFP reports Mackenzie Scott, whose fortune primarily comes from Amazon, donated the largest one-time gift from a single donor in the history of the billion-dollar abortion chain. “As always our aim has been to support the needs of underrepresented people from groups of all kinds,” Scott wrote Wednesday in a blog post about her charitable giving. “The cause of equity has no sides.” Scott, who is worth about $49 billion, said she donated more than $3.8 billion to nearly 500 organizations...

MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates are joining forces to give $40 million to projects focused on advancing gender equality in tech, higher education, minority communities and caregiving. Both Scott and French Gates have previously given to causes around gender equality.

MacKenzie Scott, philanthropist, author and former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has married a Seattle science teacher. Dan Jewett made the announcement in a letter to the website of the nonprofit organization the Giving Pledge on Saturday. Jewett said he never imagined he would be in a position to talk about giving away significant wealth during his lifetime in order to make a difference in other people's lives. He expressed gratitude "for the exceptional privilege it will be to partner in giving away assets with the potential to do so much good when shared." Jewett has been a teacher...

Supporting a leftist group that advocates defunding the police apparently wasn’t a red flag for liberal outlet Inside Philanthropy’s (IP) “Philanthropist of the Year” award. At least, that’s the message that IP sent when they named Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s liberal billionaire ex-wife MacKenzie Scott their 2020 philanthropy champion. IP praised Scott, stating that “[i]n her debut as a mega-donor, Scott moved about $6 billion, distributed to a combination of advocacy and organizing groups working in areas like race, gender and climate.” MacKenzie had announced earlier last year that she had transferred “nearly $1.7 billion to 116 organizations” linked to...