I prepared my response for every grocery store checkout experience.
“Would you like to make a one-dollar donation which supports cancer research?”
Every single time. No, thank you. I spent most of my career developing cancer treatments. I had my reasons worked out perfectly.
I dedicated my life to solving real problems because I refused to see others waste their time on meaningless verbal promises. The small amount I could give at checkout would not lead to any significant change because I have already dedicated my existence to cancer research.
I believed I applied logical reasoning when I selected my options.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Elon Musk helped me see it, though not in the way he’d probably want. Musk is notoriously skeptical of charity, preferring to focus on his for-profit ventures, which he believes will offer more transformative change for the world. He’s said he’s done more for the environment than any single human on Earth, through Tesla. He sees his companies – Starlink connecting the world, SpaceX planning Mars colonies, his tunnel projects reimagining transportation – as his contribution to humanity’s survival and progress. On paper, it sounds almost noble. And honestly? I used to think exactly the same way about my research.
In 2021 and 2022, the Musk Foundation awarded less than five percent of its assets in donations after its assets grew to several billion dollars, falling short of the legal minimum required to maintain tax-exempt status. For the third year in a row, Musk’s charitable foundation did not give away enough of its money, falling $421 million short of the required amount in 2023. That is money that went to waste. Pretty lame dude.
But here’s the thing that really got me: “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” Musk told Joe Rogan. “We’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on”. That quote hit me like cold water. Not because I disagreed – though I do, completely – but because I recognized something familiar in it. That’s how I used to justify my grocery store refusals. I was above simple charity. I was doing the real work. I was thinking bigger picture. What a load of garbage. Musk’s right that his companies are ambitious. SpaceX might actually get humans to Mars. Starlink is connecting remote areas to the internet. Tesla pushed the entire automotive industry toward electric vehicles. These aren’t small accomplishments.
But here’s what I finally understood about my own work, and by extension, about Musk’s philosophy: when you say “my work is my contribution,” what you’re really saying is “look at me and what I’ve done.” It’s about you, not them. It’s about your legacy, your vision, your impact. The people you’re supposedly helping, become props in your story of greatness. I know this because I lived it. Every time I declined to donate at that checkout, I was really saying “I’m more important than that dollar.” My research was more significant than someone else’s small gesture. I was special. The truth is messier and more humbling. Yes, I was working on cancer treatments. But that work also advanced my career, paid my salary, built my reputation. The grocery store donation? That was just giving. No credit, no advancement, no glory. Just helping.
That’s what Musk’s ventures really are – brilliant, ambitious, and ultimately self-serving. The New York Times concluded that through 2022, about half of the Musk Foundation’s grants went to organizations tied to Musk, one of his employees, or one of his companies. Musk gave millions to Cameron County, Texas, shortly after a SpaceX rocket explosion littered the region with shrapnel.
Now, I answer yes to their request for donation when they ask at the grocery store. The thing which made me rethink my entire method of operation became apparent to me. I donate because I respect the person who asks for help and because I want to assist people who need assistance and because my contribution does not need to be extraordinary to matter.
The Musk Foundation controls more than $9 billion in assets which include millions of Tesla shares and maintains no staff members. I doubt it but maybe, maybe Musk will experience a change of heart. The organization operates with three directors who spend less than three hours weekly on their responsibilities.
The organization shows its fundamental values through this statement.
The Question that Changed Everything
The pipe came home to roost for me when I asked myself: why am I genuinely doing this research? If it’s for me – for recognition, for career advancement, for my ego – then I’m just using sick people as stepping stones. If it’s actually for them, then every opportunity to help matters. The research and the dollar at checkout aren’t competing priorities. They’re the same priority expressed at different scales.
Musk talks about saving humanity while arguing that empathy is our weakness. You can’t have it both ways. Either you care about people, or you care about your vision of what people should be. One is genuine concern. The other is playing God.
I’m done playing God. I’m just trying to help now, in whatever way I can, whenever I can. The big ways and the small ways. The ways that get my name on papers and the ways that don’t. It all counts.
Maybe in twenty years, Musk’s Mars colony will exist, and historians will credit him as a visionary. Maybe they’ll be right. But I hope they also note that when people were hungry, when they were sick, when they needed help here on Earth, he called empathy a weakness and hoarded billions in a foundation that barely functioned.
I hope I’m remembered differently. Not for the papers I published or the research I conducted, but for finally understanding that helping doesn’t require an audience or a legacy. It just requires showing up, again and again, in ways large and small.
Even at the grocery checkout.
– Eli MacLeod, Scientific Researcher and Science Reporter