We’ve written a lot about Tesla CEO Elon Musk. A lot of our readers are probably tired of reading another article about him. However, one of the reasons we like Musk is because, he represents American greatness and resilience in the face of opposition and setbacks. Musk, who has an African origin, struggled as immigrant but later proved the American Dream is possible. He managed to survive on a mere $1 per day when he immigrated from South Africa to Canada, before he later became a US citizen in 2002.
Most people probably associate Musk with inventions, technology disruption, unreachable goals such as electrics cars that most of us can’t afford, a solar roofing system that seems inconceivable, and the desire to make space travel a real possibility. But for all of Elon Musk’s disruptive ideas, there is another side of Musk that many people may not know about, which Musk rarely draws people’s attention to, and that’s his philanthropic side.
In 2002, Musk founded The Musk Foundation. The focus of the foundation was to make grants available in the areas of renewable energy, science and engineering education, and pediatric health. Musk has also stated his support for an effort to preserve and turn the site of Nikola Tesla’s lab into the Tesla Science Center and Museum.
About two weeks ago, Musk donated $500,000 to Hack Club. Hack Club is a global community of high school makers and student-led coding clubs. The club has a 24/7 Slack chatroom of 9,000 teenagers learning to code and building amazing projects. Musk does not hide his love to help young people to become tomorrow’s tech leaders. Musk once said this about Hack Club:
Hack Club “makes me feel much more optimistic about the future.”
Hack Club said it’s going to use the new fund to help 1,000 more students start and join Hack Clubs in their towns. In a post on Twitter, which was also retweeted by Musk, Hack Club said: “We’re excited to share that
@ElonMusk & The Musk Foundation is donating $500,000 to Hack Club! Elon’s gift will bring Hack Club to even more high schoolers. Our finances are now open source, so you can see how we spend it.”
We’re excited to share that @ElonMusk & The Musk Foundation is donating $500,000 to Hack Club! 💸🚀
Elon’s gift will bring Hack Club to even more high schoolers. Our finances are now open source, so you can see how we spend it
Read our full announcement: https://t.co/I4ct3u77PZ
— Hack Club (@hackclub) May 20, 2020
You can read the full announcement below:
Elon Musk is one of the most prolific and ambitious hackers of the last decade.
It was a huge honor last month to have Elon spend an hour in an ask-me-anything call with our community of high schoolers—at one point he remarked we were “asking better questions than all the mainstream media” and called our community “very wholesome.”
Afterwards, Elon wanted to support Hack Club further.
When hackers see problems in the world, we don’t blame someone else: we try to take them on to solve. Elon is very selective about the nonprofits he supports and I’m proud Hack Club is one of them.
So…how will Hack Club invest $500,000? We want to use this to help 1,000 more students start and join Hack Clubs in their towns (see the worldwide map). For those already in Hack Club, we look to you to help us make a higher-quality experience. We plan to continue much of what we’re already doing (and what I wrote about in January): spending as little money as possible at all times, growing slowly, adding diverse staff to make Hack Club better (video game designers, software engineers, media producers, and more). We are pushing hard to try and make the Hack Club Slack the best place to be a teenager on the internet and expanding Hack Club Bank.
We’ll be fully transparent in how we spend this money. One thing we’ve been working toward after winning the Frank Grant is open sourcing our finances. Hack Club HQ has been running on Hack Club Bank since February, and starting today, you can see our finances publicly. Through Hack Club Bank, you can track how we spend every dollar of Elon’s gift. Soon, we’ll also launch Frank’s transparency tools on hackclub.com.
Hack Club’s mission is to build a new generation of hackers. This starts in high school, where Hack Club students learn to be technically proficient, build their friend network, learn to raise and spend money, and develop into kind, curious, thoughtful, optimistic, and honest leaders. And now Elon Musk is one of our largest supporters.
To every Hack Clubber: Elon is now supporting you and your work, so go forth and do amazing things. We can’t wait to show Elon what you make.
Zach Latta, Founder
