In 2024, Mackenzie Scott donated close to 5% of her net worth. Why isn’t she on here?
Edit: also, I am getting tired of all the billionaires datasets presented here. These people are bugs of our systems, not desirable features. We should stop idolizing them.
cofcof420 on
I don’t trust this data as Warren Buffett has donated huge portions of his wealth to charity.
Danph85 on
Trump is actually a legit billionaire now, isn’t he? I wonder where he falls on this list?
fatninja7 on
How did you choose who’s on the list? Is it the billionaires with most wealth? something else?
human-0 on
I feel like basic living needs should be subtracted first and then % of wealth should be calculated. „Average Americans“ spend far greater % of their income on essentials and so have less to even consider for charitable donations.
Only_One_Kenobi on
„I will donate 99% of my fortune“
Actually donates less than 1%
Billionaire math checks out once again
submofo2 on
Lets see Larry Ellisons donation to Israel and its military as a comparison
Bowshewicz on
How is the average American’s donation calculated? Is it a mean, and big donators are dominating it?
I know people who make charitable donations, and probably most people click that round up button at the self-checkout at least occasionally, but I’d be willing to bet the median American donation is very close to zero.
For what it’s worth, the median American household has a net worth of around $200k, so 0.2% would be $400 — probably more than you’re incidentally giving to Ronald McDonald house even if you eat at McDonald’s every single day.
iseon on
Graph-makers made the error of trying to anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Comparison of the average person with Ellison is obviously an apples to oranges comparison.
intronert on
The wealthy are making PHENOMENAL returns on those donations.
BernieTheDachshund on
Does this count Musk giving a quarter billion to the Trump campaign as ‚donated‘ even though it’s not a charity?
No_School_6290 on
How about taxes paid as a percentage of wealth?
kettal on
if somebody in debt donate $1 they’d be over 100%
cheweychewchew on
That some billionaires donate a marginally higher percentage of their income than the average American is not really news worthy. It’s to be expected.
That some billionaires donate significantly less that the average American should be in the news regularly. Folks like Musk, Bezos, and Ellison are absolute garbage human beings.
gentex on
ETA – looked closer at the bottom label and see this for 2024. Have removed earlier reference to errors in the methodology. These numbers may be correct. My bad for missing the label.
———————
Not sure about your sources or methodology, but the Warren Buffett number looks way wrong. In 2025 he donated around $6billion to various charities. According to Forbes, his net worth is estimated at around $140billion. That math works out to a little over 4%, not less than 1% as your graphic indicates.
2025 was a relatively large year for him, but since he initiated his charity efforts, he’s donated around $60 billion.
Now do it as a % of disposable income. Thats the tragedy here.
SenseEuphoric5802 on
Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison at the bottom was expected.
definitelynotapastor on
Crazy. I have 5 kids and three jobs and give more than 10%.
rcktlwyr on
How much of each billionaire’s donations are donations to charities or foundations which they control? And if so, is that real philanthropy, in the sense that the money has actually made its way to the achievement of philanthropic endeavors?
im_thecat on
If you’re trying to tell the story of how much billionaires give vs non billionaires in the us, a better way to do this is group every person in the US with net worth >1b vs everyone else in the US with billionaires excluded. Then its just 2 bars. Otherwise its sample size n=10 vs millions of people.
In this instance, it’d be interesting to see the dollar amounts in addition to percentages, then you could tell 2 stories: who gives away a higher % of net worth, and do charities reply on “regular” people or billionaires as primary source of funding.
tomridesbikes on
I don’t have a problem with people getting this kind of wealth, I don’t like how they are hording it. There could be a Musk Childrens Hospital in every city.
LatentSpacer on
Are these truly “charitable” donations? Like, not to a “charity” run by a friend or family member? Or some interest group that will lobby for them?
petertompolicy on
Tracks perfectly with how much of a piece of shit each is.
Elkenrod on
Net wealth is a really bad metric to use for data like this. If one’s wealth is all tied up in assets, they have less available to donate than someone with higher liquidity.
will_dormer on
Also important what they donate to… Elon musk donating to superpac is not charitable…
BosonCollider on
I’m surprised that Larry Elisson is giving away that much /s
Logical_Froyo_7212 on
Lies, damn lies, r/dataisbeautiful charts. Yet another day, yet another chart on billionaires.
It is easy to mislead with charts. It is one fucking year; anything could happen in that year.
Schub21 on
SNAP is by far the most cost-effective to end food insecurity, but people festishize the agency they feel in donating that we instead have a vast yet disparate network of charitable food assistance. The kind of tradeoff that none of these fuckers would ever accept in their profitable ventures.
ironteddybear on
Why just 2024 giving? Warren Buffet has given or pledged much more than 1% of his wealth away.
veryniceperson123 on
A large portion of Dell’s donation were for „Trump accounts“
Left as an exercise for the reader to determine if intentions there were charitable or otherwise.
Obversity on
Easy to donate 1% of your wealth when it won’t effect your lifestyle a smidge.
muradinner on
I’m kicking all their asses. I donated $50 and my total wealth is -$20k
EXPLODEDman on
Peter Thiel and Alex Karp don’t show up here, because their goals of heralding in the end times, and suppressing the American population with mass surveillance and autonomous weapons can happen independently of MAGA.
jaronhays4 on
Why is the top of the chart under 2% make it 100%, so you can show them more equally, which is almost all close to zero of their worth
JealousEmu2495 on
Needs analysis on donations to “donor advised” entities where the donation is really just moving $ from right pocket left pocket of the same billionaire. Then they just don’t use the funds for charity.
MithrilRat on
I’ve got to say that „this data is not beautiful“. It doesn’t present the data well, or factor in many of the variables, such as: disposable income; cost of living; or any of the other metrics that would make the graph meaningful.
While I don’t think OP is trying to push an agenda, they also don’t seem to have presented anything insightful beyond the usual billionaire propaganda.
turb0_encapsulator on
this is ridiculous to look at as a percentage. the average person in America today is barely scraping by. people who are worth hundreds of billions could give away 99% of their money and it wouldn’t effect their lifestyle.
dbmonkey on
Why not include Bill Gates? In 2024 he was the 7th richest person in the world and he had donated over $60B by 2024, including several billion that year. And if this data is after 2024, why not include the large donations Buffet made in 2025? Is this simply rage bait?
spicy-chilly on
Stolen from value created by workers in the first place. Charity is just PR to make people forget that. These people have taken enough value from workers to end homelessness in the U.S. and world hunger for decades. They’re leeches.
WhiskeyHotel83 on
and none of them pay more than 1% in taxes per year.
macgruff on
One of the number one reasons no one should ever praise M/Billionaires when they make publicly declared donations. It’s really only for show and it diminishes the capacity for voters to reliably fund endeavors that need real funding. Not onesy-twosey injections of cash.
Premium_Lover on
% of wealth relocated to a personally managed charitable organization as means to pay less in taxes
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In 2024, Mackenzie Scott donated close to 5% of her net worth. Why isn’t she on here?
Edit: also, I am getting tired of all the billionaires datasets presented here. These people are bugs of our systems, not desirable features. We should stop idolizing them.
I don’t trust this data as Warren Buffett has donated huge portions of his wealth to charity.
Trump is actually a legit billionaire now, isn’t he? I wonder where he falls on this list?
How did you choose who’s on the list? Is it the billionaires with most wealth? something else?
I feel like basic living needs should be subtracted first and then % of wealth should be calculated. „Average Americans“ spend far greater % of their income on essentials and so have less to even consider for charitable donations.
„I will donate 99% of my fortune“
Actually donates less than 1%
Billionaire math checks out once again
Lets see Larry Ellisons donation to Israel and its military as a comparison
How is the average American’s donation calculated? Is it a mean, and big donators are dominating it?
I know people who make charitable donations, and probably most people click that round up button at the self-checkout at least occasionally, but I’d be willing to bet the median American donation is very close to zero.
For what it’s worth, the median American household has a net worth of around $200k, so 0.2% would be $400 — probably more than you’re incidentally giving to Ronald McDonald house even if you eat at McDonald’s every single day.
Graph-makers made the error of trying to anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Comparison of the average person with Ellison is obviously an apples to oranges comparison.
The wealthy are making PHENOMENAL returns on those donations.
Does this count Musk giving a quarter billion to the Trump campaign as ‚donated‘ even though it’s not a charity?
How about taxes paid as a percentage of wealth?
if somebody in debt donate $1 they’d be over 100%
That some billionaires donate a marginally higher percentage of their income than the average American is not really news worthy. It’s to be expected.
That some billionaires donate significantly less that the average American should be in the news regularly. Folks like Musk, Bezos, and Ellison are absolute garbage human beings.
ETA – looked closer at the bottom label and see this for 2024. Have removed earlier reference to errors in the methodology. These numbers may be correct. My bad for missing the label.
———————
Not sure about your sources or methodology, but the Warren Buffett number looks way wrong. In 2025 he donated around $6billion to various charities. According to Forbes, his net worth is estimated at around $140billion. That math works out to a little over 4%, not less than 1% as your graphic indicates.
2025 was a relatively large year for him, but since he initiated his charity efforts, he’s donated around $60 billion.
Some details here: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/news/jun2725.pdf
Now do it as a % of disposable income. Thats the tragedy here.
Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison at the bottom was expected.
Crazy. I have 5 kids and three jobs and give more than 10%.
How much of each billionaire’s donations are donations to charities or foundations which they control? And if so, is that real philanthropy, in the sense that the money has actually made its way to the achievement of philanthropic endeavors?
If you’re trying to tell the story of how much billionaires give vs non billionaires in the us, a better way to do this is group every person in the US with net worth >1b vs everyone else in the US with billionaires excluded. Then its just 2 bars. Otherwise its sample size n=10 vs millions of people.
In this instance, it’d be interesting to see the dollar amounts in addition to percentages, then you could tell 2 stories: who gives away a higher % of net worth, and do charities reply on “regular” people or billionaires as primary source of funding.
I don’t have a problem with people getting this kind of wealth, I don’t like how they are hording it. There could be a Musk Childrens Hospital in every city.
Are these truly “charitable” donations? Like, not to a “charity” run by a friend or family member? Or some interest group that will lobby for them?
Tracks perfectly with how much of a piece of shit each is.
Net wealth is a really bad metric to use for data like this. If one’s wealth is all tied up in assets, they have less available to donate than someone with higher liquidity.
Also important what they donate to… Elon musk donating to superpac is not charitable…
I’m surprised that Larry Elisson is giving away that much /s
Lies, damn lies, r/dataisbeautiful charts. Yet another day, yet another chart on billionaires.
It is easy to mislead with charts. It is one fucking year; anything could happen in that year.
SNAP is by far the most cost-effective to end food insecurity, but people festishize the agency they feel in donating that we instead have a vast yet disparate network of charitable food assistance. The kind of tradeoff that none of these fuckers would ever accept in their profitable ventures.
Why just 2024 giving? Warren Buffet has given or pledged much more than 1% of his wealth away.
A large portion of Dell’s donation were for „Trump accounts“
Left as an exercise for the reader to determine if intentions there were charitable or otherwise.
Easy to donate 1% of your wealth when it won’t effect your lifestyle a smidge.
I’m kicking all their asses. I donated $50 and my total wealth is -$20k
Peter Thiel and Alex Karp don’t show up here, because their goals of heralding in the end times, and suppressing the American population with mass surveillance and autonomous weapons can happen independently of MAGA.
Why is the top of the chart under 2% make it 100%, so you can show them more equally, which is almost all close to zero of their worth
Needs analysis on donations to “donor advised” entities where the donation is really just moving $ from right pocket left pocket of the same billionaire. Then they just don’t use the funds for charity.
I’ve got to say that „this data is not beautiful“. It doesn’t present the data well, or factor in many of the variables, such as: disposable income; cost of living; or any of the other metrics that would make the graph meaningful.
While I don’t think OP is trying to push an agenda, they also don’t seem to have presented anything insightful beyond the usual billionaire propaganda.
this is ridiculous to look at as a percentage. the average person in America today is barely scraping by. people who are worth hundreds of billions could give away 99% of their money and it wouldn’t effect their lifestyle.
Why not include Bill Gates? In 2024 he was the 7th richest person in the world and he had donated over $60B by 2024, including several billion that year. And if this data is after 2024, why not include the large donations Buffet made in 2025? Is this simply rage bait?
Stolen from value created by workers in the first place. Charity is just PR to make people forget that. These people have taken enough value from workers to end homelessness in the U.S. and world hunger for decades. They’re leeches.
and none of them pay more than 1% in taxes per year.
One of the number one reasons no one should ever praise M/Billionaires when they make publicly declared donations. It’s really only for show and it diminishes the capacity for voters to reliably fund endeavors that need real funding. Not onesy-twosey injections of cash.
% of wealth relocated to a personally managed charitable organization as means to pay less in taxes