Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Kids Say Mom Would Be ‘Appalled’ That Award In Her Name Was Given To Elon Musk & Rupert Murdoch

James and Jane Ginsburg, the children of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, responded negatively to Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch receiving the 2024 RBG Leadership Award.

In addition to Musk and Murdoch, Martha Stewart, financier and convicted felon Mike Milken and Sylvester Stallone were the recipients of this award.

This invitation-only celebration at the Library of Congress on April 13 had been organized to bestow the Award on the tech, media, finance, food and film leaders.

“The original purpose of the award was – I have it right here – ‘to recognize an extraordinary woman who has exercised a positive and notable influence on society and served as an exemplary role model in both principles and practice,'” James told CNN.

“And whether you want to discuss the wisdom of opening up that to men or not is one thing,” he continued. “But I think you would be hard-pressed to apply that description to people like Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch. And that’s why the family is so upset.”

Later on in the interview, the reporter asked James how he thought his mother would respond to this year’s list of recipients

“I think she’d be appalled,” he replied. “I think these are people who pretty much are standing against all the things that she stood for in terms of trying to bring people into the make the world a better place for people striving for equality, and for a more inclusive world where everybody is treated with respect.”

The reporter also asked James whether he has an issue with “the award being expanded to men” or if it is just “these men in particular.”

“Well, we could discuss that, but yeah, the particular awardees and, you know, we can discuss the wisdom of each one, but the two that obviously stand out here are Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch,” he said.

“When you think of people trying to create more justice, which of course was mom’s ultimate goal, those are probably about the last names that would come to mind,” he continued.

In early March, Trevor Morrison, Ruth’s former clerk, told Julie Opperman, the chairman of the Opperman Foundation which holds the awards, in a letter that her children want her name removed from the awards unless their original criteria reinstated, including honoring “an extraordinary woman” with each award.

According to this letter, organizers in 2024 opted to include men and changed the parameters of the honors without telling James and Jane.

In the letter, Morrison called the list of honorees a “betrayal of the Justice’s legacy.”

“It is deeply worrisome that the Foundation has decided to apply the new criteria to honor people who exhibit none of the values that animated the Justice’s career,” he wrote.

Jane forwarded the letter, in addition to her statement regarding the matter, which calls the list of honorees “an affront to the memory of” her mother.

She said in her statement that family members support the sentiments in Morrison’s letter.

“This year, the Opperman Foundation has strayed far from the original mission of the award and from what Justice Ginsburg stood for,” Jane stated.

On March 18, Opperman said in a statement that the foundation was canceling the gala to avoid adding to the controversy over this year’s recipient list.

“Keeping in mind that our goal is only to do good, the foundation is not interested in creating controversy,” Opperman declared. “It is not interested in generating a debate about whether particular honorees are worthy or not.

“And while Justice Ginsburg’s concept of EQUALITY for women was very controversial for most of her life, the Foundation does not intend to enter the fray,” she declared. “Indeed, Justice Ginsburg was known for her civility.”

“The last thing we intended was to offend the family and friends of RBG,” she then mentioned. “Our purpose was only to remember her and to honor her leadership.”

The Opperman Foundation announced late on March 18 that the five recipients will no longer be receiving their award hours after Barbra Streisand criticized the choice to honor Musk and Murdoch, and several days after Jane spoke out against the award.

On March 18, Streisand posted a screenshot message on Instagram in which she stated that she proudly accepted “the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award” in memory of Justice Ginsburg.

She also said that she was joining “the Ginsburg family in condemning the choice of honorees this year,” and she met Ruth enough times to know she would not “approve of these awardees.”

In September 2020, Ginsburg became the first woman, first Jewish-American and second Supreme Court justice to ever lie in state in the U.S. Capitol building after her death.