Is a large chunk of capital like Musk's better dispersed in smaller quantities to many individuals or in larger quantities to a few? Fewer larger grants might attract more qualified people; more smaller grants get more people involved and allow more leads to be followed.
This distinction may be less sharp than it seems. The recipient of a very large grant tends to develop a process of deciding how to use it that looks very much like another grant-awarding process. In effect, a really large grant subcontracts the work of disbursement. That's not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing, but it is a thing that happens.
Many of the biggest historical success stories in philanthropy have come in the form of funding for academic research. This suggests that the topic of how to purchase such research well should be of interest to effective altruists. Less Wrong survey results indicate that a nontrivial fraction of LW has firsthand experience with the academic research environment. Inspired by the recent Elon Musk donation announcement, this is a thread for discussion of effectively using money to enable important, useful research. Feel free to brainstorm your own questions and ideas before reading what's written in the thread.