Probably he means that by giving money to an “elite” school, it just makes it more likely that it will end up hurting the “non-elites”. I don’t necessarily agree with that point by the way because there are students who will have their cost of attendance potentially offset by this donation.

Income inequality doesn't hurt the nonelite.

It at least seems to become a major social problem. See: San Francisco

Are you being serious? I thought that trickle-down economics theory was pretty much debunked in the eyes of most of the nonelite people.

I never said trickledown economics. I just said that inequality doesn't hurt people. Some rich person having a 5 star steak dinner doesn't take anything away from how much I enjoyed my own dinner. It's not a zero sum game where a rich person enjoying something takes away from what I enjoy.

The rich also enjoy healthcare

You ignored the part where money buys power, and ends up tilting the focus of an entire society towards benefiting the rich instead of ensuring the prosperity of its populace.

I agree the zero-sum mentality sucks. It introduces really nasty dynamics in society and in the workplace.

But extreme inequality is also very unhealthy for society. People with less get exploited. People with more feel entitled to exploit them.

There are many zero sum things people want. Costal beaches are more accessible to the general public when their rental property rather than empty billionaire vacation homes.

What about when you want to buy a house and the price has been driven up people treating housing as an asset class?

It's an oligarch's school for oligarchs? I can't speak for him, but that's my guess.