Gary Marcus said that Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Elon Musk lead a "hall of shame" list of billionaires who have made no known charitable contributions to helping the world cope with Covid.

The claim is about what Marcus said. True: a dated statement by Marcus from around 2020-06-04 (e.g. a tweet) shows him saying, in substance, that Brin, Page and Musk lead a 'hall of shame' list of billionaires with no known Covid charitable contributions. Mostly true: he made that statement, but the date or the exact names or wording differ slightly (e.g. he shared someone else's list with endorsing commentary). Mixed: he shared or commented on such a list but did not clearly make the claim himself, or only some of the three names appear. Mostly false: he said something related but materially different, such as criticising billionaires' Covid giving without naming these people as leading a list. False: evidence shows he made no such statement, or that it came from someone else and he did not repeat it.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Working Paper: Excess Profits, Taxpayer-Subsidized Philanthropy, and the Coronavirus Crisis Ralph Bunche Institute (working paper by John Torpey, Hilke Brockmann, Braelyn Hendricks) · 23 March 2021

   “For example, some Americans like Sergey Brin and Larry Page are well known for not making public donations (i.e., they donate anonymously).”

2. E2 Working Paper: Excess Profits, Taxpayer-Subsidized Philanthropy, and the Coronavirus Crisis Ralph Bunche Institute (working paper by John Torpey, Hilke Brockmann, Braelyn Hendricks) · 23 March 2021

   “While Google.org has donated this large sum, there is no record of personal contributions from Google’s billionaire founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who are known to prefer anonymous charitable giving.”

3. E3 Jack Dorsey, Bill Gates And At Least 75 Other Billionaires Donating To Pandemic Relief Forbes · 15 April 2020

   “While most of the world’s 2,095 billionaires have yet to give, or won’t disclose how much they’ve spent, at least 77 of them have reached into their wallets.”

4. E4 Jack Dorsey, Bill Gates And At Least 75 Other Billionaires Donating To Pandemic Relief Forbes · 15 April 2020

   “While most of the world’s 2,095 billionaires have yet to give, or won’t disclose how much they’ve spent, at least 77 of them have reached into their wallets.”

5. E5 Working Paper: Excess Profits, Taxpayer-Subsidized Philanthropy, and the Coronavirus Crisis Ralph Bunche Institute (working paper by John Torpey, Hilke Brockmann and Braelyn Hendricks) · 23 March 2021

   “For example, some Americans like Sergey Brin and Larry Page are well known for not making public donations (i.e., they donate anonymously).”

6. E6 What the 50 richest Americans have given for Covid-19 relief - Csr Egypt Csr Egypt (reprint of a Washington Post survey) · 3 June 2020

   “The Google founders, who at the time of this survey ranked seventh (Page, with $57.2 billion) and 11th (Brin, with $55.1 billion) on the list on the Forbes’s list of wealthiest Americans, are well known for their lack of public philanthropy.”

7. E7 What the 50 richest Americans have given for Covid-19 relief - Csr Egypt Csr Egypt (reprint of a Washington Post survey) · 3 June 2020

   “There are no public cash donations from Musk. Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.”

8. E8 What the 50 richest Americans have given for Covid-19 relief - Csr Egypt Csr Egypt (reprint of a Washington Post survey) · 3 June 2020

   “The outspoken founder of Tesla was one of the first billionaires to go public in the crisis, announcing he would donate 1,000 much-needed ventilators to hospitals and then convert his workforce to produce more.”

9. E9 Bill Gates and the 10 other tech titans with the power to shape how the US fights the coronavirus Vox (Recode) · 9 April 2020

   “Google’s two founders, who oversee $100 billion between them, have long been criticized for being basically AWOL in the world of serious philanthropy.”

The claim concerns what Gary Marcus said, but none of the evidence records any statement by Marcus, such as a tweet. The Washington Post survey reprint (E6, E7) and other sources (E1, E2, E9) describe Brin and Page as known for little public giving, and the survey reports no public cash donations from Musk, though it also notes he announced a ventilator donation (E8). That bears on the substance of the remark, not on whether Marcus made it. Without a record of Marcus's statement, the evidence does not settle the claim.