{"id":4574,"date":"2026-07-30T20:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4574"},"modified":"2026-07-30T20:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:18:16","slug":"ai-workers-just-got-together-and-donated-40-million-to-save-factory-farmed-chickens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4574","title":{"rendered":"AI workers just got together and donated $40 million to save factory-farmed chickens"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This year alone, donors tied to the AI industry have contributed roughly $40 million to efforts aimed at improving the lives of chickens, pigs, and other animals raised in industrial agriculture, according to Lewis Bollard, who has spent the past decade leading farm animal welfare work at Coefficient Giving.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018I\u2019m just stuck\u2019: Meet the former OpenAI researcher sitting on $700K of equity that he says is overvalued<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWith the young AI crowd, there\u2019s way more of a willingness to say, \u2018Yeah, I\u2019ll just sign a million-dollar check. Sure,\u201d Bollard told Forbes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Much of that momentum traces back to an appearance Bollard made on tech podcaster Dwarkesh Patel\u2019s show in August 2025. During the hour-long conversation, the pair argued that billions of animals endure lives of extreme confinement in industrial agriculture, yet the issue receives only a fraction of the philanthropic dollars devoted to causes such as climate change and global health.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we treat factory-farmed animals is one of the worst atrocities in history,\u201d Patel wrote on X last year. \u201cAnd unfortunately, the problem is on track to get worse every year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conversation quickly turned into action. Patel launched a fundraising campaign for FarmKind, a non-profit donation platform dedicated to ending factory farming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Patel offered an initial $250,000 matching commitment, and it was fully claimed in less than two days\u2014far faster than FarmKind expected, cofounder Thom Norman told Fortune<\/em>. Patel and Bollard also began organizing informal dinners at AI companies, including OpenAI, to discuss factory farming and animal welfare with employees.<\/p>\n

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In total, Patel\u2019s FarmKind campaign alone raised $2.3 million, Norman said, and repeat donors have since contributed another $200,000\u2014and counting.<\/p>\n

AI wealth could unleash $300 billion in new philanthropic giving<\/h2>\n

U.S. charitable giving reached a record $617.2 billion in 2025, according to the Giving USA Foundation. Yet the AI boom could dramatically reshape who is doing the giving. Forbes<\/em> reported that roughly $300 billion in new wealth could flow into philanthropy over the next several years thanks to AI, eventually fueling about $30 billion in annual donations.<\/p>\n

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Unlike previous generations of wealthy donors, many younger founders, employees, and investors appear eager to give earlier in life rather than waiting until retirement or traditional estate-planning years.<\/p>\n

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The generosity extends beyond writing checks. According to a 2024 survey by Bank of America Private Bank of individuals with more than $3 million in investable assets, donors under 43 are slightly more likely to volunteer, twice as likely to help raise charitable donations from friends or peers, and more than four times as likely to act as mentors.<\/p>\n

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For animal welfare advocates, the influx of money and engagement, especially from Gen Z and millennial tech workers, is a potential turning point.<\/p>\n

Read more Samsung posts record $62 billion profit \u2014 and investors sell off anyway<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe farmed animal movement has, historically, had less money to spend in a year globally than two weeks of McDonald\u2019s profits,\u201d Norman told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cSo philanthropy from AI lab employees could be radically transformative.\u201d<\/p>\n

As young people reshape philanthropy, billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel question whether giving actually works<\/h2>\n

Despite the growing enthusiasm among younger wealthy donors, some of the world\u2019s richest people have warned that philanthropy is far harder than simply writing a check.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk, for example, has repeatedly argued that donating money effectively is one of the hardest problems facing wealthy individuals.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe biggest challenge I find with my foundation is trying to give money away in a way that is truly beneficial to people,\u201d Musk said on the WTF<\/em> podcast last year. \u201cIt\u2019s very easy to give money away to get the appearance of goodness. It is very difficult to give money away for the reality of goodness. Very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk has also said that money may become less important over the next decade as technology advances. When Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu challenged him to donate his fortune by 2036, Musk responded: \u201cI am actually going to do something along these lines!\u201d<\/p>\n

Other tech billionaires have expressed similar doubts about traditional philanthropy. Peter Thiel, whose net worth is estimated at $27 billion, has said he has encouraged around a dozen Giving Pledge signers\u2014including Musk\u2014to resend their commitment to give the majority of their wealth to charitable causes in their lifetime or upon death.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the ones I\u2019ve talked to have at least expressed regret about signing it,\u201d he told The New York Times<\/em> earlier this year, calling the Pledge an \u201cEpstein-adjacent, fake Boomer club.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For nonprofit leaders, the difficulty is not necessarily finding worthy causes\u2014it is ensuring that enormous sums of money actually create meaningful change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I had a billion dollars to give away,\u201d Liz Baker, CEO of global nonprofit Greater Good Charities, previously told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cBut as somebody who\u2019s responsible for giving away money, yeah, it\u2019s hard, because there\u2019s a really big responsibility that goes with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Howard University reinstates hundreds of students after mass unenrollment<\/a><\/p>\n

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A viral tech podcast led to an influx of $40 million toward improving the lives of chickens, pigs, and other animals raised in industrial agriculture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth"],"yoast_head":"\nAI workers just got together and donated $40 million to save factory-farmed chickens - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4574\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AI workers just got together and donated $40 million to save factory-farmed chickens - 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