Billie Eilish has a message for the world\u2019s most prominent billionaires: Give your money away, shorties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you all, but there are a few people here with a lot more money than me,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you\u2019re a billionaire\u2014why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties,\u201d she said at the WSJ Magazine Innovator Awards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The comments came as the 23-year-old artist was honored for her contributions to the music industry on Wednesday. It was then revealed she\u2019d be donating $11.5 million from her \u201cHit Me Hard and Soft\u201d tour to The Changemaker Project<\/a>, a charitable initiative that addresses climate change and food insecurity.<\/p>\n One of the billionaires in attendance at the awards show was Meta\u2019s Mark Zuckerberg, accompanying his wife, Priscilla Chan, who was\u00a0 recognized for her philanthropic efforts. Others who attended included director Spike Lee<\/a>, Rhode founder Hailey Bieber,<\/a> and \u201cStar Wars<\/a>\u201d creator George Lucas<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in a time right now where the world feels really dark, and people need empathy and help more than ever\u2014especially in our country,\u201d Eilish told the star-studded audience. \u201cIf you have money, it\u2019d be great to use it for good\u2014maybe give some to people who need it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n According to People magazine, which had reporters on the ground at the event, Zuckerberg did not clap along with the rest of the audience at Eilish\u2019s remarks. The Facebook co-founder has a reported net worth of $226 billion, according to Forbes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Eilish has an estimated net worth of $50 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth<\/a>. Despite her growing success, and winning nine Grammy Awards, the Gen Z star still lives with her parents in their two-bedroom, one-bathroom property in Los Angeles.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Eilish has long been an advocate for environmental and social causes alongside her mother, Maggie Baird<\/a>, and brother, Finneas. Together, they\u2019ve championed sustainability in the music industry<\/a>. Baird, a climate activist, is also the founder of Support + Feed<\/a>, a nonprofit promoting plant-based eating to fight climate change and food insecurity.<\/p>\n Zuckerberg signed Bill Gates\u2019 Giving Pledge, though few have fulfilled the promise\u00a0<\/p>\n Zuckerberg and Chan signed the Giving Pledge<\/a>, a promise to give away a majority of wealth over time, back in 2010. Launched that same year by Bill and Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett, the Giving Pledge invites the world\u2019s wealthiest individuals and families to publicly commit to giving away at least 50% of their wealth to philanthropy, either during their lifetimes or in their wills.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some of the signers include Bezos\u2019s ex-wife MacKenzie Scott (but not Jeff Bezos), Michael Bloomberg, Elon Musk, George Lucas, and Mark Zuckerberg. Billionaire Peter Thiel previously warned Tesla\u2019s Elon Musk to get out of it, as it donates to \u201cleft-wing non profits.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite hundreds of billionaires signing the Giving Pledge, they haven\u2019t necessarily followed through. (In fact, only one billionaire couple<\/a> seems to have actually done it.) The pledge is a moral commitment rather than a legally binding contract: Participants sign an open letter explaining their reasons for giving, and they can choose which causes and charities to support.As part of following through on the Giving Pledge, in 2015,\u00a0 Zuckerberg and Chan announced they would give 99% of their shares in Facebook\u2014worth $45 billion at the time\u2014to charity\u2014but the move was met with widespread criticism<\/a> when the billionaire couple said they would give their money away to their own Chan Zuckerberg Initiative<\/a>, aprogram focuses on healthcare and education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billie Eilish has a message for the world\u2019s most prominent billionaires: Give your money away, shorties.\u00a0 \u201cI love…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":345837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[244,185,5497,171,3991,20151,4061,224,7798,170004,340,30674,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-345836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-billionaires","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-concerts","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-gen-z","13":"tag-grammy-awards","14":"tag-jeff-bezos","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-mark-zuckerberg","17":"tag-media-and-technology","18":"tag-meta","19":"tag-millionaires","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115469479576937459","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}