Two Tech Billionaires Just Gave Away $65 Million to Shape AI's Future

Every year, a grant program called the Survival and Flourishing Fund hands out money to researchers and nonprofits working on big, long-term problems — especially making artificial intelligence safe and making sure it benefits people rather than harms them. For 2026, the fund says it's giving out up to $65 million. That's real money: roughly the cost of a small hospital, or about 1,000 well-paid jobs for a year.

Who's paying? Historically the funder has been Jaan Tallinn, a programmer who helped create Skype and is now one of the biggest private backers of AI safety work. This year he was joined by Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder who has given away billions through his philanthropy. The announcement came from Zach Stein-Perlman on the blog LessWrong, in a short post that mostly links to the fund's own recommendations page and thanks the people involved.

Why should you care? Because AI is being built fast, and the rules, research, and safety checks around it are largely paid for by private money — not governments. When two billionaires decide where $65 million goes, they effectively decide which ideas get tested, which warnings get studied, and which experts get to keep working on this. If those choices go well, you get AI that's more trustworthy. If they go badly, or if too few people are watching, risky systems can reach your inbox, your bank, and your doctor's office with less scrutiny.

The catch: this is an insider story. The post itself is one minute long, with no list of which projects won, no explanation of how winners were chosen, and no way for a normal person to weigh in. Big decisions about everyone's future are being made by a very small circle of wealthy donors, announced on a niche blog, mostly read by people already in the field.