Billie Eilish needs billionaires to donate extra.
Because the Grammy and Oscar winner accepted the music award at this 12 months’s WSJ. Journal Innovator Awards on Wednesday night time, she urged the ultra-wealthy to deal with extra of the world’s points.
“We’re in a time right now where the world is really, really bad and really dark and people need empathy and help more than, kind of, ever, especially in our country,” Eilish stated to an viewers that included Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his spouse Priscilla Chan, in addition to “Star Wars” creator George Lucas. “I’d say if you have money, it would be great to use it for good things, maybe give it to some people that need it.”
Late-night host Stephen Colbert launched Eilish onstage at New York’s Museum of Trendy Artwork by saying that she would donate $11.5 million of the proceeds from her Hit Me Exhausting and Tender tour to causes devoted to meals fairness, local weather justice and lowering carbon air pollution.
Billie Eilish attends the WSJ. Journal 2025 Innovator Awards at MoMA on Oct. 29, 2025, in New York Metropolis.
Taylor Hill / Getty Photos
In accepting the award, the “Bad Guy” singer added a well mannered however direct name to others within the room, saying lots of people, particularly within the U.S., might use some assist proper now.
“Love you all, but there’s a few people in here who have a lot more money than me,” she stated, to a smattering of applause. “And if you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? And no hate, but give your money away, shorties.”
By way of her Changemaker Program, Eilish has labored with the nonprofit Reverb for years on its Music Decarbonization Mission and its Music Local weather Revolution initiative, alongside artists starting from Lifeless & Firm to Harry Kinds.
Chan was additionally honored on the occasion, receiving the “Philanthropy of Science Innovator of the Year” award. A spokesperson for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Brandi Hoffine Barr, stated Zuckerberg and Chan have dedicated to giving freely 99% of their Meta shares to philanthropy over the course of their lifetimes and have already granted out $7 billion. In line with Forbes, Zuckerberg’s present web value is round $224 billion.
Eilish’s feedback come because the variety of billionaires worldwide continues to develop, with 204 new billionaires added in 2024, in response to a January report from Oxfam Worldwide titled “Takers Not Makers.”
The report discovered that the billionaires grew wealthier thrice quicker in 2024 than in 2023, pointing to an elevated focus of sources globally.
Oxfam predicted that not less than 5 folks will turn out to be trillionaires within the subsequent decade, up from one individual the 12 months earlier than. The group referred to as for larger taxes on the wealthy and different measures to interrupt up monopolies, cap CEO pay and require firms to pay residing wages.
The wealthiest Individuals have a protracted historical past of calling on one another to provide away extra of their cash. In 1889, the metal magnate and industrialist Andrew Carnegie argued within the essay “The Gospel of Wealth” that the richest ought to give away their fortunes inside their lifetimes, partly to reduce the sting of rising inequality.
In 2010, Invoice Gates, Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett took up that decision by creating the Giving Pledge, a dedication for billionaires to provide away greater than half their wealth of their lifetimes or once they die.
Fifteen years on, some 256 billionaires have taken the pledge, with 110 of them coming from the U.S., in response to a current report by the Charity Reform Initiative of the Institute for Coverage Research. These U.S. billionaires signify 13% of the overall 876 billionaires within the U.S., in response to the report, revealing the small portion of the wealthiest individuals who have publicly dedicated to giving freely their fortunes.
The report discovered that of the 22 billionaires who’ve died since taking the pledge, just one gave away his fortune earlier than he died. In the meantime, solely eight of the 22 deceased pledgers fulfilled the dedication by giving freely half of their wealth or extra at their dying, although a few of their estates are nonetheless being resolved.
Chuck Collins, one of many authors of the report and an skilled on the Institute for Coverage Research, stated Eilish’s feedback are a part of a rising realization that the principles of the financial system favor these with property over those that earn wages.
He thinks the Giving Pledge has created an expectation and competitors for the wealthiest to provide away their cash, however the fortunes of lots of the pledgers have elevated over time, which means they might want to transfer much more aggressively if they’re to satisfy the dedication.
“In the end, philanthropy is not a substitute for a fair and effective tax system,” Collins stated. “The level of extreme inequality will require some form of restoring progressivity to the tax system, a wealth tax as well as progressive income tax.”
