Billie Eilish didn’t mince words when she took the stage at WSJ.’s Innovator Awards on Wednesday night.
Standing in front of a black-tie audience at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which included Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, the 23-year-old accepted the evening’s Music Innovator Award and promptly asked the most impolite question in polite society: why do billionaires exist at all?
“We’re in a time right now where the world is really, really bad and really dark, and people need empathy and help more than ever,” she began, before adding with her trademark smirk, “Love you all, but there’s a few people in here that have a lot more money than me. And if you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties.”
The crowd laughed, but the remark landed like a quiet detonation. While Eilish was calling for empathy, Zuckerberg—whose fortune is estimated around US$251 billion—sat nearby.
His wife, Chan, was being honoured for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s investments in medical research, some of which have drawn scrutiny for their ties to elite institutions such as Harvard and for the couple’s broader role in big-tech philanthropy.
Eilish’s point, however, wasn’t performative. Later in the evening, host Stephen Colbert announced that she would donate $11.5 million from her Hit Me Hard and Soft world tour to organisations addressing food equity, climate justice and carbon reduction.
“Billie, on behalf of all humans, thank you very much,” Colbert said.
It was one of those rare celebrity moments that felt genuinely radical: a young woman standing in a room full of power and asking for something unfashionable—accountability. And in true Billie Eilish fashion, she made it sound effortless. This is why we love her.
