The Fine Print of AI Philanthropy: Why Anthropic and Elon Musk are giving away billions

AI donations made headlines after Anthropic announced that 5 per cent of its shares would go to a fund set up to benefit the public. Based on the company's last valuation, those shares are worth $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 US. This would be worth around $10 billion.

Most AI companies are struggling to make money. Competition is fierce, and companies at this stage of growth usually do not focus on charity. But giving back has become important because these companies are about to create huge costs for people and society.

If the AI revolution develops as promised, it could cause a wave of job losses, wiping out entire industries. Data centres also use up resources in the areas where they are built. Protests against data centres are breaking out around the world, from Thane to Memphis.

Companies causing such major changes know that large parts of the public may soon turn against them. Their charitable donations are an attempt to reduce this backlash and protect their reputations. The message is: accept the benefits, but do not feel too grateful, because people are already paying a price in other ways.