· Private foundation
Musk Foundation
Its FY2021 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
88% of Musk Foundation’s FY2021 grant dollars went to Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2021 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- $50k–250k3 grants · $300k
- $250k+1 grant · $1.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FIDELITY CHARITABLE | $1,364,300 |
| CAJUN NAVY RELIEF INC | $100,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA | $100,000 |
| THE ST BERNARD PROJECT INC | $100,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 4% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The uc santa barbara foundation actively works to further the goals of the university of california, santa barbara. the foundation seeks to maintain and nurture the university's quality and distinction. on behalf of the campus, the…
The mission of the silicon schools fund is to improve education through supporting the launch of excellent new schools, improving academic instruction in existing schools, and by funding some of the boldest innovations in education…
The common application is a not-for-profit membership organization of over 1,100 colleges and universities across the globe committed to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. every year, over 1.5 million students…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The mission of the uc davis foundation is to secure, steward and manage private gifts for uc davis.
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
To support educational, research and public functions and programs of the riverside campus of the university of california.
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
We empower directors and transform boards to be future ready.
Finreglab is a d.c.-based research organization working at the intersection of financial innovation and public policy. our mission is to advance technology and data use to help people and small businesses manage their financial lives,…
Help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wikimedia Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Yc Org. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 14 of the 15 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds YC ORG ↗
- Who funds Mercatus Center Inc ↗
- Who funds WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE HACK FOUNDATION D/B/A HACK CLUB ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA ↗
- Who funds THE ST BERNARD PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds THE CAJUN NAVY RELIEF INC ↗
- Who funds AD ASTRA SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SACRED HEART UNIVERSITY INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds WINDWARD SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds CROSSROADS SCHOOL FOR ARTS AND SCIENCES ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Musk Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Sacred Heart University Incorporated — 1% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Musk Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Musk Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.