New Delhi:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly criticised US President Joe Biden’s decision to honour billionaire philanthropist George Soros with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“A travesty that Biden is giving Soros the Medal of Freedom,” Musk stated bluntly on X.

A travesty that Biden is giving Soros the Medal of Freedom https://t.co/LGvGe8kqKE

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 4, 2025

President Biden announced the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Saturday, naming 19 individuals whose contributions span politics, philanthropy, sports, and the arts. Soros, a billionaire investor and founder of the Open Society Foundations, was cited for his “focus on global initiatives that strengthen democracy, human rights, education, and social justice,” according to the official White House statement.

Other notable awardees this year include former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, football legend Lionel Messi, and actors Michael J Fox and Denzel Washington, among others.

George Soros’ son Alex Soros collecting the medal on his behalf.
Photo Credit: AFP

Soros’ selection has sparked polarised responses, particularly given his longstanding role as a key donor to Democratic causes and his frequent vilification by Republican politicians. Critics, including Musk and several Republican figures, have framed the honour as politically motivated. President Biden, however, defended the list of recipients as individuals who embody America’s values and contribute to its global standing.

“These nineteen individuals are great leaders who have made extraordinary contributions to our country and the world. They defend the values of America, even when under attack,” Biden stated during the announcement.

The Republican Party has long accused Soros of using his wealth to influence global politics. 

George Soros was at the centre of a political flashpoint in India as well.  

The Winter Session of Parliament witnessed chaos in December as BJP chief JP Nadda accused the Congress of being linked to Soros and his organisations. Mr Nadda claimed that the Congress party was acting as a “tool” of foreign forces to destabilise India, citing alleged ties between party chief leader Sonia Gandhi and Soros-funded initiatives.  

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge refuted the allegations, calling them baseless and accusing the BJP of diverting attention from pressing socio-economic issues in the country. The heated exchange led to multiple adjournments in both houses of Parliament.

Soros’ influence and the controversy surrounding him extend far beyond international borders. His Open Society Foundations have faced pushback in countries like Hungary and Russia, where his initiatives are often painted as foreign interference.

\George Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations, attends the European Council on Foreign Relations Annual Council Meeting, May 29, 2018, in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)
| Photo Credit: AP

Despite years of internal turmoil and changes, Open Society Foundations wants those in the human rights sector to know their movements will still receive support from the organization, its president Binaifer Nowrojee said Tuesday (December 10, 2024).

The foundations, founded by billionaire investor George Soros and now led by one of his sons, Alex Soros, have historically been one of the largest funders of human rights groups. But since 2021, they closed some of their programs and reduced their staff as part of a major internal reorganization.

In the process, many grantees and others in the human rights movement have waited anxiously to see where the chips would fall.

“A reimagination has taken place under the leadership of the new board chair at Open Society Foundations,” Nowrojee said, referring to Alex Soros.

“One of the reasons that we wanted to really reiterate in a large way, with balloons, et cetera, that we are still committed to human rights, is because of this fear that’s permeated with the changes that somehow Open Society Foundations is no longer going to be working on rights or equity or justice,” she said in advance of Human Rights Day, which the United Nations observes on Dec. 10.

Ms. Nowrojee offered few new details about OSF’s specific funding priorities, though earlier this year, the foundations committed $400 million toward green jobs and economic development.

Another new program focuses on protecting environmental defenders that will work in a few countries, like Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and end after five years, said Sharan Srinvias, a director of programs at OSF.

“We did a survey of what other donors are supporting and in general, we saw that this is where the gap is,” he said of people who come under attack for defending land, water or other resources. “Especially bilateral donors find it much easier to support global organizations, who in turn are able to support prominent rights defenders in capital cities who are well known.”

One benefit of the limited time horizon, Mr. Srinvias said, is his team will mostly make grants of three or five years — longer than OSF’s typical grants — and offer grantees more flexibility. It will also have some funds to respond to emergencies for human rights defenders all over the world.

In 2020, OSF was the largest global human rights funder, giving out the most money overall and making the largest number of grants. That’s according to the Human Rights Funders Network, a membership organization of grantmakers that tracks philanthropic funding for human rights groups.

“When major funders adjust their priorities, it can have a ripple effect. Their decisions can dramatically impact the human rights movements they once supported, especially in regions where they’ve been a long-time champion,” HRFN wrote in its most recent Advancing Human Rights report from September.

To add to the atmosphere of uncertainty, another major human rights funder, Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, announced earlier this year that it would end its work by 2028.

OSF’s board aims to employ 600 people in total around the world, Nowrojee said, which is down from a reported 800 in 2021.

Some of the changes OSF made in the last three years include winding down its global public health program and significantly diminishing its programs in the European Union. It spun off its area of work focused on Roma communities into a new organization and issued final grants to many of its partners.

“You never want philanthropy to just be doing the same thing. You want philanthropy to be getting out of stuff,” Ms. Nowrojee said. “And so there’s large areas of work where huge achievements were made, which we have retreated from, not because we don’t think that there’s value in them, but the movements themselves have strengthened.”

People who worked for OSF’s public health program and some of their grantees have spoken about its impacts over almost three decades through an oral history project led by University of Southern California Institute on Inequalities in Global Health and funded by OSF.

Jonathan Cohen, who led the OSF public health program and now holds positions at USC, told an interviewer with the oral history project about a decision in 2020 by OSF’s leadership to take funding from its programs and reallocate it to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That claw-back in April should have been a sign, I think, to all of us that we were not long for this world,” Cohen said, of the public health program. “But of course, you don’t accept that. You fight. You resist. You try to keep your program, which is what we did until we couldn’t.”

Among the movements that OSF had supported under its public health program was the the Network of Sex Work Projects, a global coalition of sex worker groups. It formed in 1992 in part in response to the killing of sex workers who had HIV, said Ruth Morgan Thomas, who was NSWP’s global coordinator for many years, as part of the oral history project. She said she was saddened to see the closure of OSF’s public health work.

“I hope as it reemerges and its global strategy reemerges, it will retain its stance and support for promoting the realization of sex workers’ rights and inclusion in our societies,” she said.

Palestinian artist Nida Sinnokrot, one of 18 artists receiving the 2023 Soros Arts Fellowships from the Open Society Foundations on October 24, says that art provides hope and resilience, even in the midst of war.

“It’s our duty to find the strength to keep the despair at bay in the face of the unimaginable,” said Mr. Sinnokrot, who is the co-founder of Sakiya, a Palestinian academy of agrarian traditions and contemporary art, and a faculty member in Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Art, Culture, and Technology Program. “We have to, as artists, find the courage to disrupt convention, practice the spreading of hope and cultivate new stories and imaginaries that challenge divisive binaries.”

Members of this year’s class of Soros Arts Fellows, including Mr. Sinnokrot, will receive $100,000 in unrestricted funding from Open Society Foundations to develop a public art project that confronts climate change with community-based solutions in the next 18 months, said Tatiana Mouarbes, Open Society’s Team Manager for Culture, Art, and Expression.

‘Need for action’

“There’s a clear need for bold action, for justice and for equity-based solutions to ensure a more regenerative and life-sustaining world,” said Ms. Mouarbes, adding that “systems of global colonialism, white supremacy and capitalism have long stripped the environment of its natural resources.”

At a time when many in philanthropy are reevaluating priorities — including Open Society Foundations, as the nonprofit founded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros changes under the new leadership of his son, Alex — Mouarbes said artists’ work can be just as impactful as other more traditional investments. This year’s class of Soros Arts Fellows is the largest since the program launched in 2018.

“We firmly believe that art is not only an essential driver for social change, but that robust, diverse and fortified arts and culture landscapes are prerequisites for open, just and inclusive societies everywhere,’ she said. ”Art is transformative in so many ways, in expanding political and collective consciousness, in transforming and challenging and providing alternatives to oppressive power structures and ideologies, and for creating momentum for change.”

New York-based artist Jordan Weber, another of the 2023 Soros Arts Fellows, said he was thrilled to be part of the group because the foundation works hard to support art that creates direct action, rather than simply “talking about the problems in our communities.”

“Individuals who are implementing arts that are really effective, they’re treating the cause of the problem,” said Weber, who will plant an acre of conifer trees in Detroit as part of a remediation project to counter pollution from nearby factories producing automobiles, while also engaging the community to enjoy the open space and learn about environmental justice. “I feel like we’re on the cutting edge of that. … This is the launchpad of something new — a new realm of direct action in the arts.”

Molemo Moiloa also plans to incorporate community action in her art project in Johannesburg, South Africa, for her Soros Arts fellowship. Moiloa said her project is a reaction to the weariness many younger South Africans currently feel, as the hopes generated by Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as the country’s first Black president in 1994 have dimmed.

“Particularly since the pandemic, we’ve been hit really, really hard — a lot of the people who were kind of just keeping it together aren’t anymore,” Moiloa said. “The idea of preparing for collapse sounds a bit dramatic, but it’s also about using it as an opportunity, as a moment to think about a kind of economic and political system that wasn’t really built for everybody.”

Her project “The Ungovernable” will help people connect with the land and teach them strategies to survive uncertain times, combining an area for urban farming and community centers that allow “reconnecting with traditional and indigenous knowledge systems.”

Sinnokrot’s project “Storytelling Stones: How far does your mother’s voice carry?” also involves finding inspiration from “ancestral knowledges systems” to develop more nuanced and sustainable approaches to complex issues, including climate change. He wants to build Palestinian stone shelters known as mintar and give them new uses, including as “an acoustic chamber, that can resonate with the environment and our oral histories.”

Despite the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, Sinnokrot said he still plans to build his project in Palestine, though he declines to say where.

Artists’ impact

“One of the reasons I still feel hope is that there is powerful solidarity around the world that embraces this ethos,” he said. “And that’s what’s so amazing about this year’s (Soros Arts Fellows) and their communities. Soros and its Open Society initiative is supporting a global commons, and that is precisely what it takes to change the world.”

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The 2023 Soros Art Fellows are:

Bilia Bah, of Guinea; Cannupa Hanska Luger, of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Lakota tribes in the United States; Carolina Caycedo, of Colombia and the United States; Chemi Rosado-Seijo, of Puerto Rico; Dalton Paula, of Brazil; Deborah Jack, of St. Maarten; Fehras Publishing Practices, the collective of Kenan Darwich and Sami Rustom, both from Syria and based in Germany; Ixchel Tonāntzin Xōchitlzihuatl, of the United States; Jordan Weber, of the United States; Martha Atienza, of the Philippines; Molemo Moiloa, of South Africa; Mónica de Miranda, of Portugal; Nida Sinnokrot, of Palestine; Omar Berrada, of Morocco; Rijin Sahakian, of Iraq and the United States; Sari Dennise, of Mexico; Yto Barrada, of Morocco.