Lewis Hamilton says more must be done to divide the world’s wealth between the many and the few.
The seven-time world champion, whose personal fortune is estimated at £300 million, has revealed how he saw the “heartbreaking” child poverty around the world.
Asked on the podcast about his views on the rules he wants to change, Hamilton said: “It’s something I struggle with every day, and it’s just how life is and has been the way it’s been for thousands of years, right? Such a difference between the rich and the poor. When you drive in LA, there are still a lot of people living on the streets.”
“You don’t have to have billions,” Jay Shetty told an interviewer. “There has to be a limit to how much you can have. Because there’s enough to go around for everybody. So somehow creating a law that creates more equality and equal benefits for everyone. I don’t know how you’re going to enforce that law.”
The Mercedes driver says his experiences with poverty around the world have influenced him. “I’ve had hungry children,” he said. “And how you think we are so, so lucky, so many of us. And it is very important to know that and use it every day. “
Hamilton’s fortune makes him among motor racing’s highest earners. But former F1 owner Bernie Ecclestone, one of the 177 billionaires living in the UK, is worth far less than the £2.49bn estimate. The seven-time world champion admits he finds it challenging to decide which initiatives deserve the most attention.
“There are many reasons,” he said. “There are a lot of problems and a lot of surprising factors out there. And there is only one of you, so where do you focus?
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“It took a long, long time for me to figure out what happened. I think for me, education was my favorite thing because I went to India, I went to very poor places like Manila and I saw children who were like us but begging and begging for food. They do not have the same opportunities. And that’s what broke my heart for me [I] We realized how privileged we were and how lucky we were.
“I want to work with people who are trying to create more. There are over a hundred million children who don’t have the opportunity to learn, so how can I get involved in this? So align yourself with people who do.”
Hamilton was ranked fifth in the Sunday Times Giving List last year, the highest sportsman to his name. He started a charity called Mission 44 to promote youth education and tackle inequality.
“It was winning and it was giving me that edge of happiness,” he explained. But then I would go back to normal and something was missing.
“And understanding what that purpose is and understanding why you’re sitting here, why you’ve been given the platform that you’ve been given, that purpose was. Why are we the only people of color in all of this?
When I started talking about diversity, people were like, ‘Oh, you want more people of color to be racing drivers?’ There are only 20 of us, so I was like, no, if there are 40,000, 50,000 jobs, there are thousands of engineering jobs in the background and there is such a lack of diversity. I want to change that narrative and change that conversation and make people question themselves and have difficult conversations with people.
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