Before March 2021, Elon Musk’s charitable foundation had never announced any donations to Cameron County, an impoverished region at the southern tip of Texas that is home to his SpaceX launch site and local officials who help regulate it.
在2021年3月之前，埃隆·马斯克的慈善基金会从未宣布过对卡梅伦县做出任何捐赠。卡梅伦县是得克萨斯州南端的一个贫困地区，也是马斯克的SpaceX公司的火箭发射场，以及监管发射场的当地官员的居住地。

Then, at 8:05 one morning that month, a SpaceX rocket blew up, showering the area with a rain of twisted metal.
然后，在那个月的一天，早晨8点05分，SpaceX的一枚火箭爆炸了，扭曲的金属像雨一样洒满了整个地区。

The Musk Foundation began giving at 9:27 a.m. local time.
马斯克基金会于当地时间上午9:27开始作出捐赠。

“Am donating $20M to Cameron County schools & $10M to City of Brownsville for downtown revitalization,” Mr. Musk said on Twitter.
马斯克在Twitter上说：“我将向卡梅伦县的学校捐赠2000万美元，并向布朗斯维尔市捐赠1000万美元，用于振兴市中心。”

Mr. Musk, the world’s second-richest person according to Forbes, presides over SpaceX, Tesla and other companies that are pushing the boundaries of technology, while also controlling a social media platform, now known as X, through which he promotes his often-polarizing political and social views.
作为《福布斯》杂志评选出的世界第二富豪，马斯克掌管着SpaceX、特斯拉和其他不断推动技术发展的公司，同时还控制着现改名为X的社交媒体平台，他通过这个平台宣传自己往往偏激的政治和社会观点。

At the same time, he runs a charity with billions of dollars, the kind of resources that could make a global impact. But unlike Bill Gates, who has deployed his fortune in an effort to improve health care across Africa, or Walmart’s Walton family, which has spurred change in the American education system, Mr. Musk’s philanthropy has been haphazard and largely self-serving — making him eligible for enormous tax breaks and helping his businesses.
与此同时，他还管理着一家数十亿美元的慈善机构，如此规模的资源可以产生全球性的影响。比尔·盖茨用自己的财富来改善整个非洲的医疗服务，沃尔玛背后的沃尔顿家族则推动了美国教育体系的变革。与他们不同的是，马斯克的慈善事业杂乱无章，主要是为了利己，让他有资格获得巨额税收减免，并帮助他的企业。

Since 2020, he has seeded his charity with tax-deductible donations of stock worth more than $7 billion at the time, making it one of the largest in the country.
自2020年以来，马斯克通过可减税捐赠给自己的慈善机构投入了当时价值超过70亿美元的股票，使其成为美国最大的慈善机构之一。

The foundation that houses the money has failed in recent years to give away the bare minimum required by law to justify the tax break, exposing it to the risk of having to pay the government a substantial financial penalty.
近年来，存放这笔资金的基金会未能按照法律要求提供最低限额的捐赠，以证明减税的合理性，这使其面临向政府支付巨额罚款的风险。

Mr. Musk has not hired any staff for his foundation, tax filings show. Its billions are handled by a board that consists of himself and two volunteers, one of whom reports putting in so little time that it averages out to six minutes per week.
税务文件显示，马斯克没有为他的慈善基金会雇佣任何员工。基金会的数十亿资金由一个董事会负责，董事会成员包括马斯克本人和两名志愿者，其中一名志愿者据报告投入的时间很少，平均每周只有六分钟。

In 2022, the last year for which records are available, they gave away $160 million, which was $234 million less than the law required — the fourth-largest shortfall of any foundation in the country.
2022年，也就是有记录可查的最后一年，他们捐出了1亿6000万美元，比法律规定的最低限额少了2亿3400万美元，是全国所有基金会中第四大的欠额。

Mr. Musk is under no obligation to have a charity, and he has made clear that he believes his for-profit enterprises will change the world for the better far more than any philanthropic venture could. But once he set up a nonprofit and filled it with tax-deductible gifts, he was required by law to ensure that his foundation served the public, and that it did not operate for the “private benefit” of its leader.
马斯克没有设立慈善机构的义务，而且他已经明确表示，他相信自己的营利性企业将比任何慈善事业更能改善世界。但是，一旦他成立了一个非盈利组织，并在其中注入可减税的捐赠，法律就要求他确保自己的基金会服务于公众，而不是为了其领导者的“私人利益”运作。

A New York Times analysis found that, of the Musk Foundation’s giving in 2021 and 2022 — the latest years for which full data is available — about half of the donations had some link to Mr. Musk, one of his employees or one of his businesses.
《纽约时报》的分析发现，在马斯克基金会2021年和2022年的捐赠中（这是有完整数据可查的最近几年），约有一半捐赠与马斯克、他的一名员工或他的一家企业有某种关联。

Among the donations the Musk Foundation has made, there was $55 million to help a major SpaceX customer meet a charitable pledge. There were the millions that went to Cameron County, Texas, after the rocket blew up. And there were donations to two schools closely tied to his businesses: one walled off inside a SpaceX compound, the other located next to a new subdivision for Musk’s employees.
在马斯克基金会的捐款中，有5500万美元是为了帮SpaceX的一位大客户兑现其慈善承诺。还有那枚火箭爆炸后向得克萨斯州卡梅伦县捐赠的数千万美元。此外，还有向两所与马斯克的业务密切相关的学校提供的捐款：一所学校建在SpaceX公司园区内，另一所学校则位于为马斯克的员工新建的一个社区内。

“The really striking thing about Musk is the disjuncture between his outsized public persona, and his very, very minimal philanthropic presence,” said Benjamin Soskis, who studies philanthropy at the Urban Institute. Where other billionaires have aimed for a broad impact on society, Mr. Soskis said Mr. Musk’s foundation lacks “any direction or any real focus, outside his business ventures.”
在城市研究所研究慈善事业的本杰明·索斯基斯说，“马斯克真正引人注目的地方在于，他的公众形象让人难以忽视，而他在慈善事业上的影响力却微乎其微。”索斯基斯说，其他亿万富翁的目标是对社会产生广泛影响，而马斯克的基金会“在他的商业活动之外缺乏任何方向或真正的重点”。

Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
马斯克没有回应置评请求。

A school for his children
一所给他的孩子的学校

Mr. Musk and his younger brother, Kimbal, started the Musk Foundation in 2001, a year before the sale of PayPal, the online payments company he co-founded, to eBay for $1.5 billion. He made more than $175 million in the sale, and would seed his namesake foundation with about $2 million worth of eBay shares.
马斯克和他的弟弟金巴尔于2001年创办了马斯克基金会，这是在他参与创办的在线支付公司PayPal以15亿美元的价格出售给eBay的前一年。他在这笔交易中获利超过1亿7500万美元，并将价值约200万美元的eBay股票捐给了其同名基金会作为种子资金。

The Musk Foundation’s website initially included slick animations, featuring pictures of satellite dishes and children in classrooms, while encouraging people to apply for grants. By 2005, however, it was wiped clean, replaced by plain black text stating that the foundation was interested in “science education, pediatric health and clean energy.”
马斯克基金会的网站上最初放着精彩的动画，展示卫星天线和教室里孩子们的照片，同时鼓励人们申请资助。然而到了2005年，动画被简单的黑色文字取代，上面写着基金会关注“科学教育、儿童健康和清洁能源”。

It listed no contact information. It still does not.
网站没有列出任何联系信息。现在也没有。

By September 2014, Forbes estimated that Mr. Musk’s net worth was more than $10 billion, driven up by the value of his holdings of Tesla stock. But he gave little to his own charity. That year, tax filings show, his foundation had $40,121 in the bank.
据《福布斯》估计，到2014年9月，马斯克的净资产已超过100亿美元，这主要得益于他持有的特斯拉股票的价值。但他对自己的慈善机构却捐献甚少。税务文件显示，那一年，他的基金会在银行有40121美元的存款。

That fit with Mr. Musk’s public stance on philanthropy. His for-profit companies, he said, were his way of changing the world.
这符合马斯克对慈善事业的公开立场。他曾说，他会通过其营利性公司来改变世界。

“Tesla has done more to help the environment than all other companies combined,” he said last year at The New York Times’s DealBook conference. “As a leader of the company, I’ve done more for the environment than any single human on earth.”
“特斯拉为环保所做的贡献超过了其他所有公司的总和，”他去年在《纽约时报》的交易录论坛上说。“作为公司的领导者，我为环保所做的贡献比地球上任何一个人都要多。”

Mr. Musk, instead, used his small foundation to help groups tied to him personally, including a food charity run by his brother and a “Temple of Whollyness” that was set on fire at the 2013 Burning Man festival, an annual event that he often attends.
实际上，马斯克利用他的小型基金会帮助与他个人有关的团体，包括他兄弟经营的一个食物慈善机构，以及在他经常参加的火人节在2013年点燃的“完全神圣神庙”。

He also founded his own nonprofit school called Ad Astra — Latin for “to the stars” — to explore new ways to teach math and science.
他还创办了自己的非盈利性学校“以达星辰”（Ad Astra，拉丁语“向繁星进发”的意思。），探索数学和科学教学的新方法。

But that school, too, would serve a personal purpose for Mr. Musk. In its first year of operation out of his home in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, five of Ad Astra’s 14 students were his own children.
但这所学校也为马斯克的个人目的服务。在他位于洛杉矶贝莱尔的家中运营的第一年里，以达星辰学校的14名学生中有五名是他自己的孩子。

“Kindness and eagerness to learn (and parents that worked at SpaceX) were the only criteria for admission,” wrote Joshua Dahn, the initial head of the school.
学校最初的负责人约书亚·达恩写道：“善良和求知欲（以及在SpaceX工作的父母）是录取的唯一标准。”

Ad Astra later moved to SpaceX’s Hawthorne, Calif., headquarters and grew to more than 50 students. About half were related to SpaceX employees, Mr. Dahn said in an email. Mr. Dahn’s contract even said that the intellectual property he developed at the school would be half owned by Mr. Musk personally, according to a copy obtained by The Times.
以达星辰学校后来搬到了SpaceX位于加州霍桑的总部，学生人数增加到了50多人。达恩在一封电子邮件中说，大约一半的学生与SpaceX的员工有亲缘关系。根据《纽约时报》获得的一份副本，达恩的合同甚至写明，在学校开发的知识产权将有一半归马斯克个人所有。

Two former SpaceX executives, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, recalled that Ad Astra was sometimes discussed as a perk for the children of executives, though it was understood to be near impossible for the offspring of rank-and-file employees to gain admission.
两名因担心遭到报复而不愿透露姓名的SpaceX前高管回忆说，以达星辰学校有时被认为是给高管子女的一项福利，而大家都明白，对于普通员工的子女来说，想获准进入几乎是不可能的。

Mr. Musk made a $254 million gift of Tesla stock to his foundation in 2016, and its grants got bigger, but they still seemed to follow no coherent theme.
2016年，马斯克向他的基金会捐赠了价值2亿5400万美元的特斯拉股票，拨发的善款也在增加，但仍然看不到一个连贯的主题。

The Musk Foundation donated $10 million to OpenAI — the groundbreaking artificial intelligence developer, where he sat on the board of directors. (OpenAI was a nonprofit at the time of the gift, though it has now spun out several for-profit companies.) Mr. Musk said in a recent lawsuit against the organization and its founders that he personally gave an additional $34 million before stopping his gifts in 2020. Mr. Musk previously said he had given about $100 million to OpenAI.
马斯克基金会向开创性的人工智能开发组织OpenAI捐赠了1000万美元，他是该公司的董事会成员。（OpenAI在获得捐赠时是一家非盈利组织，尽管它现在已经分立了几家营利性公司。）马斯克在最近针对该组织及其创始人的诉讼中表示，在停止其捐赠之前，他个人于2020年额外向OpenAI捐赠了3400万美元。马斯克此前曾表示，他已向OpenAI捐赠了约1亿美元。

But Mr. Musk’s giving often seemed guided by Twitter, where he made splashy promises in response to challenges from internet celebrities: He gave $1 million to plant trees after prompting from the YouTuber Mr. Beast and $1 million to help small businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic after a push from Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports.
但马斯克的捐赠似乎常常受到Twitter的引导，他在Twitter上做出了引人注目的承诺，以回应互联网名人的挑战：在YouTube博主Mr.Beast的倡导下，他捐赠了100万美元用于植树；在Barstool Sports创始人戴夫·波特诺伊的推动下，他在新冠大流行期间捐赠了100万美元以帮助小型企业渡过疫情。

On July 5, 2018, he began interacting with Amariyanna “Mari” Copeny, a youth activist in Flint, Mich., who asked him for bicycles for local kids and clean water for her city, which was experiencing a crisis with its water supply. Less than a week later, Mr. Musk tweeted “a commitment” that he would “fund fixing the water in any house in Flint that has water contamination above FDA levels.”
2018年7月5日，他开始与密歇根州弗林特市的青年活动人士“马里”阿玛利亚纳·科彭尼互动，后者请求他为当地孩子提供自行车，并为她所在的城市提供清洁水源，那里当时正面临一场供水危机。不到一周后，马斯克发布推文，“承诺”将“为弗林特市所有水污染程度超过FDA标准的房屋供水恢复工作提供资金”。

“Will organize a weekend in Flint to add filters to those houses with issues,” he said in another tweet.
“将在弗林特组织一场周末活动，为那些出现问题的房屋添加过滤器，”他在另一条推文中表示。

Karen Williams Weaver, a Democrat who was mayor of Flint at the time, said the city asked Mr. Musk to focus initially on helping schools. The Musk Foundation donated about $1 million to schools, paying to install water filters and buy laptops for students. It also gave $125,000 to a charity associated with Ms. Copeny that aimed to help Flint children.
时任弗林特市市长的民主党人凯伦·威廉姆斯·韦弗表示，该市请求马斯克先把重点放在帮助学校上。马斯克基金会向学校捐赠了约100万美元，用于安装滤水器和为学生购买笔记本电脑。它还向与科彭尼有关联的一家慈善机构捐赠了12.5万美元，旨在帮助弗林特市的儿童。

Flint asked for much more.
弗林特要求的远比这些更多。

It sent Mr. Musk a four-page letter, asking him to fund new water infrastructure and wide-scale pipe replacements in homes. It also asked Mr. Musk to open a research office or manufacturing facility in the city.
该市发给马斯克一封长达四页的信，请求他资助新的供水基础设施和大范围的家宅管道更换。它还请求马斯克在该市开设一间研究办公室或一家制造厂。

Few of those wishes came true. Tesla sent a corporate development executive, who offered rides around the city hall parking lot in a company vehicle, and Mr. Musk briefly considered placing a self-driving artificial intelligence facility in the city, according to communications obtained by The Times. He also visited Flint and Ms. Copeny’s school.
这些愿望基本都没能实现。《纽约时报》获得的通信记录显示，特斯拉派来了一名企业发展主管，他邀请大家乘坐公司的车，在弗林特市政厅的停车场转几圈，此外马斯克一度考虑在该市建立一个自动驾驶人工智能设施。他还访问了弗林特市，去了科彭尼的学校。

But Tesla never opened an office there. And since mid-2019, the Musk Foundation has not listed any more gifts to Flint for home water filters or other causes.
但特斯拉从未在那里开设办公室。而且自2019年年中以来，马斯克基金会就没有再列出任何对弗林特市的捐赠，无论是用于家用滤水器还是其他方面。

Still, the mayor said she was grateful. “He didn’t have to do anything,” she said.
不过，该市市长表示她仍然心存感激。“他没有义务做任何事，”她说。

A big donation and a big tax break
大额捐款和大额减税

At the end of 2021, Mr. Musk had a problem. He had exercised options from a stock bonus plan from Tesla that gave him about $25 billion worth of shares in the automaker. But that came with a price.
2021年底，马斯克遇到了一个问题。他行使了一项特斯拉股票红利计划中的期权，使他获得了该汽车制造商价值约250亿美元的股票。但这是有代价的。

“I will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year,” he later posted.
“今年我将缴纳超过110亿美元的税，”他后来发帖称。

Tax law gives executives sitting on huge stores of their companies’ stock a way to lower that bill: charity. Mr. Musk could donate shares of Tesla, whose stock price had boomed in recent years, to a nonprofit and take a tax deduction based on the value of the stock. It did not matter that he might have paid little to obtain the shares.
税法为持有自己公司大量股票的高管们提供了一种减税方法：慈善事业。马斯克可以将近年来股价飙升的特斯拉股票捐赠给非盈利组织，并根据股票的价值获得减税。他可能几乎没花什么钱就获得了这些股份，但这没有关系。

In October of that year, Mr. Musk had publicly flirted with the idea of a charitable mega-gift. On Twitter, he wrote that if the United Nations World Food Program could describe how it would spend the money, he would sell Tesla stock and give the program $6 billion.
那年10月，马斯克曾高调提出巨额慈善捐赠的想法。他在Twitter上写道，如果联合国世界粮食计划署能够详细说明如何使用这笔钱，他将出售特斯拉股票，并向该组织捐赠60亿美元。

The U.N. program replied with a plan, but Mr. Musk gave nothing. Instead, Mr. Musk gave to his own foundation: five million Tesla shares, worth $5.7 billion at the time.
世界粮食计划署回复了一份计划书，但马斯克没有给一分钱。他向自己的基金会捐赠了500万股特斯拉股票，当时价值57亿美元。

The gift tripled the Musk Foundation’s assets and put it among the 20 largest foundations in the country. Tax experts said it could have saved Mr. Musk more than $2 billion off his tax bill.
这笔捐赠使马斯克基金会的资产翻了三倍，从而跻身美国20大基金会之列。税务专家表示，这可以为马斯克节省超过20亿美元的税款。

More donations from Mr. Musk meant more responsibility for his foundation. Tax law requires all foundations to give away 5 percent of their assets every year, so the Musk Foundation was expected to dole out hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
马斯克的捐款增加，意味着他的基金会的责任也在增加。税法要求所有基金会每年捐出5%的资产，因此马斯克基金会预计每年要拨发数亿美元。

The foundation did not add paid staff to meet that new benchmark. The only recorded change was a tiny one: Matilda Simon, one of Mr. Musk’s family-office employees, who also serves as one of the foundation’s three volunteer board members, increased her workload from 0 hours to 0.1 hours, or six minutes a week, according to tax filings.
基金会并未根据新的基准增设受薪岗位。唯一记录在案的是一个很小的人事变动：税务文件显示，马斯克的家族办公室雇员、基金会三位志愿者董事之一玛蒂尔达·西蒙，将她的工作量从0小时增加到了0.1小时，也就是每周六分钟。

The foundation’s two other volunteers — Mr. Musk and Jared Birchall, who as head of Mr. Musk’s family office helps manage his wealth — reported that they each worked an hour a week. Ms. Simon and Mr. Birchall did not respond to a request for comment.
基金会的另两位志愿者——马斯克本人以及马斯克家族办公室负责人贾里德·伯奇尔——记录的工作时数是每周一小时。西蒙和伯奇尔没有回应置评请求。

In 2021, the Musk Foundation fell $41 million short of the minimum required donation, tax filings show. In 2022, it missed the 5 percent mark by even more: $193 million. That year, Musk’s foundation gave away only about 2.25 percent of its $7 billion in assets, far below the 5 percent minimum, tax filings show.
2021年，税务文件显示马斯克基金会的捐款比规定的最低额少了4100万美元。2022年距离5%的标准更远了：差距比前一年又增加了1亿9300万美元。税务文件显示那一年马斯克的基金会只捐出了其70亿资产的约2.25%，远低于5%的最低额。

With shortfall piled on shortfall, the Musk Foundation was then left $234 million behind by the end of 2022, the fourth-largest gap of any foundation in the country, according to Cause IQ, a firm that analyzes charity data.
经过连年的不达标，到了2022年底，马斯克基金会的捐款欠额达到2亿3400万美元，根据慈善数据分析公司Cause IQ的统计，这是美国所有基金会中的第四高欠额。

“It tells you it’s not yet ready for prime time,” said Brian Galle, a professor who studies nonprofit law at Georgetown University, referring to the minimal giveaways by the foundation. “It’s not yet a professional organization.”
“你可以看到，它还上不了台面，”研究非盈利法律的乔治敦大学教授布莱恩·盖尔这样评价基金会少之又少的捐款。“它还不是一个专业的组织。”

The Musk Foundation has not released details of what it gave away in 2023, or whether it made up its shortfall from the year before. If it did not, it could owe a penalty tax equal to 30 percent of the remaining shortfall from 2022.
马斯克基金会没有公布有关2023年善款拨发的详情，也没有澄清是否已经补足之前一年的欠额。如果未能补足，基金会需要承担相当于2022年尚欠额度的30%的惩罚税。

Some of the money that the Musk Foundation did give away during those years went to groups with no obvious connection to Mr. Musk’s businesses.
在马斯克基金会捐出的善款中，其中一些给了与马斯克的业务没有明显关联的组织。

The foundation, for instance, gave $112 million to the XPRIZE Foundation, to honor researchers who remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans. It gave $10 million to the University of Texas to study human population trends — a matter of concern to Mr. Musk, who has said he fears Earth’s population could collapse. That gift was first reported by Bloomberg.
例如XPRIZE基金会得到了1亿1200万美元，以表彰致力于清除大气和海洋中的二氧化碳的研究人员。得州大学得到了1000万美元，用于人口趋势研究——这是马斯克关注的一个领域，他曾表示担心地球的人口会崩溃。彭博新闻社率先报道了这笔捐款。

But other grants landed close to Mr. Musk’s own interests.
不过有一些受赠方与马斯克有利益关联。

The Musk Foundation, for instance, gave $5 million to a United Nations program that helps countries identify rural schools that need internet access. In at least two cases, those countries then became Mr. Musk’s customers, connecting their schools with his Starlink satellite service.
例如马斯克基金会向一个联合国项目捐了500万美元，帮助各国评估有哪些农村学校需要互联网接入。其中至少有两例受惠方成为马斯克的客户的情况，用他的星链卫星服务为学校提供网络。

One of the biggest gifts helped one of SpaceX’s customers: Jared Isaacman, a Pennsylvania billionaire, who chartered a trip to orbit on a SpaceX rocket in 2021. Mr. Isaacman said the flight would raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital by raffling off one of the four seats on the flight. (Mr. Isaacman declined to say at the time how much he paid for the seats he reserved except that he planned to raise far more for charity than he spent.)
有一笔大额捐款的受惠方是SpaceX的客户：宾夕法尼亚州亿万富翁贾里德·艾萨克曼在2021年包租了一趟SpaceX的火箭轨道环游。艾萨克曼称，通过将四个座位中的一个座位作为抽奖奖品，此行可以为圣犹达儿童研究医院筹得2亿美元。（艾萨克曼当时拒绝透露他花了多少钱预定这些座位，只是表示他计划筹集的善款将远远多于他支付的钱。）

But when Mr. Isaacman touched down on Earth, the mission’s Twitter account said it was still short of his $200 million goal.
然而等到艾萨克曼回到地球上时，此行的官方Twitter账号表示他尚未达到2亿美元的目标。

“Count me in for $50M,” Mr. Musk tweeted back. The Musk Foundation eventually paid $55 million, its largest donation that year.
“我凑个5000万，”马斯克回复说。马斯克基金会最终拨发了5500万美元，是那年的最大一笔捐款。

A few months later, Mr. Isaacman announced he would pay SpaceX for three more spaceflights. He declined to answer questions about the flights or Mr. Musk’s donation.
几个月后，艾萨克曼宣布再向SpaceX购买三次太空旅行。他拒绝就这些旅行和马斯克的捐款回答问题。

Experts on nonprofit law said there appeared to be nothing illegal about that gift, because it did not involve the Musk Foundation paying Mr. Musk or his customer directly.
非盈利法专家说，看不出这笔捐款违反了任何法律，因为不涉及马斯克基金会向马斯克或他的客户直接付款。

But Kathleen Enright, the president of the Council on Foundations, said she would have advised Mr. Musk to recuse himself from this decision — and let the other members of the foundation’s board decide whether to give. She said that would ensure that Mr. Musk was not letting the needs of his business control the actions of his foundation, which is supposed to be an independent entity with its own charitable goals.
然而基金会理事会会长凯瑟琳·恩莱特说，她会建议马斯克不要参与这一决策——让基金会的其他董事来决定是否捐款。她说她会确保基金会的行动不被马斯克的商业需求所左右，基金会理应是一个有自身慈善目标的独立实体。

“It’s not his checkbook,” Ms. Enright said. “It’s not a private, family-owned company. It’s a charitable organization.”
“那不是他的支票本，”恩莱特说。“不是一家家族拥有的私立公司。这是一个慈善组织。”

Money for Texas
得州善款

Starting in late 2020, Mr. Musk began to shift his business operations from California to Texas, and his charities followed.
马斯克从2020年底开始将自己的业务从加州转移到得州，他的慈善事业也随之转移。

The Ad Astra School, which had educated some SpaceX employees’ children, moved to a location near the company’s launch site in South Texas. At first, it seemed to be open to the public, according to an archived version of its website from last year.
有部分SpaceX员工子女就读的以达星辰学校搬到了公司在南得州的发射场附近。从学校网站去年的一个存档版本看，该校一开始是对外开放的。

But that website disappeared. And the Ad Astra campus was placed behind the security gates of a SpaceX-owned compound. At the campus today, there is no sign of a school, only a security guard in a pickup truck and signs that say “Private Property. No Trespassing.”
但是网站后来消失了。学校位于一个有安保大门的SpaceX园区内。如今的校园已经看不出是一间学校，只有一个坐在皮卡车里的保安，还有写着“私人物业。不得擅闯。”字样的标识。

Mr. Musk has also given $100 million from his foundation to a startup Texas charity called “The Foundation,” which says it wants to start schools and eventually a university.
马斯克还从自己的基金会中拿出1亿美元，捐给得克萨斯州一家名为“基金会”的初创慈善机构，该机构表示希望开办学校，最终创办一所大学。

The donation moved money out of the Musk Foundation, helping it get closer to reaching that 5 percent minimum donation. But it did not move the money out of Mr. Musk’s orbit: the new charity is run by Mr. Birchall, the head of his family office, and two leaders at Mr. Musk’s accounting firm.
这笔捐款将资金从马斯克基金会转移出去，帮助该基金会接近5%的最低捐赠目标。但这笔钱并没有脱离马斯克的轨道：这家新慈善机构由马斯克的家族办公室负责人伯奇尔和马斯克的会计师事务所的两名负责人管理。

Land records show that the new charity used a shell company to purchase a 40-acre plot of land near Bastrop, Texas. The land is two minutes from a 110-home subdivision that one of Mr. Musk’s companies, a tunneling startup called The Boring Company, is building for its own workers. Online job postings indicate they are planning to open a new Ad Astra School there this summer. The new charity’s leaders declined to answer questions from The Times.
土地记录显示，这家新成立的慈善机构利用一家空壳公司，在得克萨斯州巴斯托普附近购买了一块约16公顷的土地。马斯克旗下一家名为“无聊公司”的隧道挖掘初创公司正在附近为自己的员工建造一个社区，可容纳110个家庭，距离这块土地只有两分钟的路程。网上的招聘信息显示，这家新慈善机构计划今年夏天在那里开设一所新的以达星辰学校，机构的领导人拒绝回答时报的问题。

In South Texas, Mr. Musk also used his foundation to rebuild SpaceX’s reputation after the 2021 rocket explosion.
在南得州，马斯克还利用他的基金会在2021年火箭爆炸事件后挽回SpaceX的声誉。

A few days before the blast, Mr. Musk had gone to the office of the top elected official in Cameron County, Eddie Treviño Jr., a Democrat, to complain. Mr. Musk felt the county, home to SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch complex, was taking too long to approve permits and other requests.
爆炸发生前几天，马斯克去了卡梅伦县最高民选官员、民主党人小艾迪·特雷维尼奥的办公室表达自己的不满。马斯克觉得，作为SpaceX公司博卡奇卡发射基地所在地，卡梅伦县审批许可证和其他申请的时间太长了。

Mr. Treviño recounted replying that SpaceX needed to do more to help the impoverished community. “I didn’t specifically say ‘Give us X,’” meaning a specific amount of money, Mr. Treviño said. “But I said, ‘Help me raise this community.’”
特雷维尼奥回忆了自己的回答，当时他说SpaceX需要做更多的事情来帮助贫困社区。“我并没有明确地说‘给我们多少钱’，”特雷维尼奥说。“但我说，‘帮我把这个社区扶持起来。’”

But after the explosion, the donations Mr. Treviño had requested began to flow.
但在爆炸发生后，特雷维尼奥所要求的捐款开始涌入。

But the money didn’t come from SpaceX. Instead, it came from the Musk Foundation.
但这笔钱并不是来自SpaceX，而是来自马斯克基金会。

The foundation paid local schools at least $18 million, which they used to buy everything from classroom laptops to pop-up planetariums to tools for teaching welding to adults. “Some of those adult learners are now working at SpaceX,” said Nereida “Nellie” Cantu, the top official in the Brownsville school district.
该基金会向当地学校支付了至少1800万美元，用于购买从课堂笔记本电脑到简易天文台，再到成人焊工教学工具等各种物品。“其中一些成人学员现在已经在SpaceX工作了，”布朗斯维尔学区负责人“内莉”内雷达·坎图说。

The foundation also paid to fix up Brownsville’s dusty downtown. The result was to provide more upscale restaurants — like Le Rêve, Brownsville’s first French bistro — at a time when Mr. Musk was trying to entice employees to move there.
该基金会还出资修缮了布朗斯维尔尘土飞扬的市中心。结果带来了更多高档餐厅，比如布朗斯维尔的第一家法式餐吧Le Rêve，当时马斯克正试图吸引员工搬到那里。

Without any staff to handle the South Texas donations, Mr. Musk deputized Igor Kurganov — a friend and former professional poker player who was never listed as an employee of the foundation — as a liaison. Mr. Kurganov often drilled local officials on the smallest details, like the color of the lights on a Christmas display paid for by the foundation: “‘cool white’ strikes me as suboptimal.”
由于没有任何员工来处理南得州的捐赠事宜，马斯克委托他的朋友、前职业扑克玩家伊戈尔·库尔加诺夫作为联络人，但此人从未被列为基金会的雇员。库尔加诺夫经常就细枝末节向当地官员提出要求，比如基金会出钱建造的圣诞布景的灯光颜色：“‘冷白色’在我看来不太理想。”

Mr. Kurganov, who left the Musk Foundation in 2022, did not respond to requests for comment. Brownsville’s mayor said that, so far, Mr. Musk’s foundation has only given about $4.5 million of the $10 million he promised in 2021 for downtown beautification.
于2022年离开马斯克基金会的库尔加诺夫没有回应置评请求。布朗斯维尔市长说，马斯克曾承诺在2021年拿出1000万美元用于市中心的美化，而到目前为止他的基金会只拿出了大约450万美元。

But if Mr. Musk’s goal was to improve his company’s public image in Brownsville, the donations appear to have helped.
但如果马斯克的目标是改善其公司在布朗斯维尔的公众形象，那么这些捐款似乎有所帮助。

“He’s given to every organization that exists here in Brownsville, from our homeless shelters to the city of Brownsville to our school children — almost anything I can ever think of,” Jessica Tetreau, a member of the city commission, said in a video filmed outside Mr. Musk’s rocket launch headquarters.
“从我们的无家可归者收容所到布朗斯维尔市，再到我们的学生——他给了布朗斯维尔的每一个组织几乎所有我能想到的东西，”市委员会成员杰西卡·泰特罗在一段拍摄于马斯克的火箭发射总部外的视频中说。

A fresh mural in Brownsville’s downtown depicts the city’s old landmarks — the cathedral, the zoo, the Gulf of Mexico beach — alongside a new one: SpaceX’s rocket complex.
布朗斯维尔市中心的一幅新壁画描绘了这座城市的老地标——大教堂、动物园、墨西哥湾海滩——以及一个新地标：SpaceX的火箭园区。

The name of the charity that helped pay for the mural is listed at the bottom left: The Musk Foundation.
左下角写着支付壁画费用的慈善机构的名字：马斯克基金会。

David A. Fahrenthold是一名报道非营利组织的调查记者。他从事记者工作已有二十年