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    Michael Hiltzik: Billionaires set a record with Caltech gift, but altruism isn't the whole story

    by Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times Oct 01, 2019 7 minutes

    The Beverly Hills billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick garnered a heaping helping of adulatory publicity last week with the announcement of their record-breaking $750-million pledge to Caltech for research into climate change and "environmental sustainability."

    The donation, according to the university's announcement, is the largest single gift it has ever received, and the second largest ever to an American university. (It's topped only by a $1.8-billion gift from businessman and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to his alma mater Johns Hopkins.)

    News coverage of the Resnicks' gift bristled with praise for their generosity and testimonials to their devotion to the cause of addressing climate change. Some articles quoted Stewart Resnick describing the donation as having arisen from a desire to serve his children and his childrens' children.

    "My grandkids ... they would yell at me all the time, 'How can you help with this? What are you doing about it?' " he told my colleague James Rainey. "A lot of the adults are not concerned, but the kids are concerned. And rightfully so."

    What was missing in all this coverage, or at least got buried as an afterthought, was any acknowledgment of the

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