Could Elon Musk really solve world hunger?

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 November 2021

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Just 2% of Elon Musk's wealth could supposedly help solve world hunger. But how was this estimate calculated, and is solving this issue as simple as a billionaire writing a check?

Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:09.0	This is the indicator from Planet Money.
0:13.6	I'm Adrian Ma.
0:14.6	And I'm Stacey Vanick Smith.
0:16.2	And Adrian, you know, the indicator, we are an economic show.
0:19.5	I mean, but we cover all kinds of things, really.
0:21.4	I mean, you know, money, it's part of everything.
0:24.0	And so, you know, we're always trying to put dollar amounts on things that are sometimes
0:27.6	kind of hard to quantify, like reducing carbon emissions or preventing evictions or, you
0:33.1	know, solving world hunger.
0:35.4	Yeah.
0:36.4	That came up over the weekend on Twitter involving Elon Musk.
0:41.0	Elon Musk.
0:42.0	He just, the man makes a lot of news.
0:44.6	What can you say?
0:45.6	Yeah.
0:46.6	So, he was tweeting in response to something that the director of the United Nations World
0:50.0	Food Program said.
0:51.5	He said, the world's billionaires need to step up and that if Elon Musk, the world's
0:56.1	richest person would hand over just 2% of his fortune, he could help solve the world's
1:01.2	hunger crisis.
1:02.2	Yeah.
	...

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