If you are one of the richest people in the world, how much money is it right to give to good causes? And how do you know what exactly a good cause is anyway?
George Soros would be a good man to ask.
The Hungarian billionaire – the 29th richest person on Earth – has just given £13.6 billion of his personal wealth to his own his Open Society Foundations. It’s one of the largest donations ever made, and makes his foundation the second largest in the US.
Yet Soros’ philanthropy is of a pointedly political kind, making him new enemies as well as more friends.
The purpose of the Open Society Foundations is to help build “vibrant and tolerant democracies.”
He has been accused of helping install pro-western government in Serbia and the Ukraine. And in his homeland, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused Soros of meddling acting as a would-be “political puppet master.”