AI Philanthropy: Why Anthropic and Elon Musk Are Giving Away Billions

AI philanthropy made headlines when Anthropic announced that 5 per cent of its shares would go to a public benefit fund. Based on its most recent valuation, these shares are worth US$48 billion. Almost immediately, Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, which owns the advanced AI model Grok, said he would give one share of the company to every child in the United States. This would amount to around US$10 billion.

These are certainly huge amounts of money, but they raise a question: why do these companies feel the need to give so much away? Most AI companies are struggling to make profits. Competition is fierce, and companies in a sector at this stage of growth do not usually focus on charity. However, giving back has become necessary because of the enormous costs these companies are about to place on individuals and society.

If the AI revolution develops as promised, it could cause a wave of job losses unlike anything seen before. Entire industries could disappear as AI takes over work that people have spent their time and effort doing. Data centres, the physical buildings where AI models are developed, also use up large amounts of local resources. Across the world, from Thane to Memphis in the United States, people are protesting against data centres.

Companies causing such major changes understand that large parts of the public may soon turn against them. Philanthropy, or giving money and other help back to society, is an attempt to reduce this backlash. There is nothing wrong with doing this. It is a valid way for companies to take social responsibility. But we should not fool ourselves into thinking these actions are driven by anything other than self-interest. They are a way to protect and improve a company's reputation. Accept the benefits they offer, but do not feel too grateful, because society is already paying the price in one way or another.