Billie Eilish wants billionaires to give more.
As a Grammy and Oscar winner, he received a music award at this year's WSJ. At the magazine's Innovator Awards on Wednesday night, she called on the super-rich to address the world's problems.
“We're living in a time right now where the world is really, really bad and really dark, and people need empathy and help more than ever, especially in our country,” Eilish told the audience, which included Meta's CEO. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chanand also the creator of Star Wars George Lucas. “I would say that if you have money, it would be great to spend it on good causes, maybe giving it to people who need it.”
Night host Stephen Colbert introduced Eilish on stage at New York's Museum of Modern Art, announcing that she would donate $11.5 million of proceeds from her Hit Me Hard and Soft tour to causes dedicated to food equality, climate justice and reducing carbon pollution.
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While accepting the award, the “Bad Guy” singer politely but directly addressed others in the room, saying that many people, especially in the US, could use some help right now.
“Love you all, but there are several people here who have a lot more money than I do,” she said to applause. “And if you are a billionaire, then why are you a billionaire? And no hate, but give your money away, shorties.”
As part of her Changemaker program, Eilish has worked for years with the non-profit organization Reverb on the Music Decarbonization Project and the Music Climate Revolution initiative, alongside artists ranging from Dead & Company to Harry Styles.
Chan was also honored at the event, receiving the Science and Philanthropy Innovator of the Year award. Chan Zuckerberg Initiative spokeswoman Brandi Hoffin Barr said Zuckerberg and Chan have committed to giving 99% of their Meta shares to charity during their lifetimes and have already given $7 billion. According to Forbes, Zuckerberg's current net worth is about $224 billion.
Eilish's comments come as the number of billionaires around the world continues to grow, with 204 new billionaires added in 2024, according to a January report from the agency. Oxfam International called “Takers, not Makers”.
The report found that billionaires were getting richer three times faster in 2024 than in 2023, indicating an increased concentration of resources around the world.
Oxfam predicts at least five people will become trillionaires in the next decade, up from one person a year earlier. The group called for higher taxes on the rich and other measures to break up monopolies, cap CEO pay and require companies to pay a living wage.
The richest Americans have long encouraged each other to give more of their money. In 1889, steel magnate and industrialist Andrew Carnegie argued in his essay “The Gospel of Wealth” that the richest should give away their wealth during their lifetimes, in part to ease the pain of growing inequality.
In 2010 Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates And Warren Buffett answered this call by creating Promisethe obligation of billionaires to give away more than half of their wealth during their lifetime or upon death.
Fifteen years later, some 256 billionaires have made the pledge, 110 of them from the United States, according to a recent survey. Charitable Reform Initiative report Institute of Political Studies. According to the report, these American billionaires make up 13% of the total number of 876 billionaires in the US, which shows a small portion of the richest people who have publicly committed to giving away their wealth.
Of the 22 billionaires who died after taking bail, only one gave away his fortune before dying, the report found. Meanwhile, only eight of the 22 deceased mortgagors have fulfilled their obligation, giving away half or more of their estate at death, although some of their estates are still in the process of being settled.
Chuck Collins, one of the report's authors and an expert at the Institute for Policy Studies, said Ailes' comments are part of a growing awareness that the rules of the economy favor those with assets over those earning wages.
He believes the Giving Pledge has created an expectation and competition among the wealthiest people to give their money, but many pledgers' wealth has increased over time, meaning they will have to be even more aggressive if they want to keep their pledge.
“At the end of the day, philanthropy is not a substitute for a fair and efficient tax system,” Collins said. “The level of extreme inequality will require some form of restoration of tax system progressivity, a wealth tax, as well as a progressive income tax.”
