What does the world do when its wealthiest residents decide to re-think schooling from scratch? In 2025, that’s no longer speculation it’s happening in classrooms, boardrooms, and even on distant campuses across the globe. From AI-driven private schools to free academies in impoverished neighborhoods, education projects worth billion dollars are testing radical new approaches that challenge the norm.
While some of them are booming, others are closing, scandal-hit, or fighting the rude awakenings of growing grand ideas. All of them do, however, give a glimpse of how deep pockets and personal vision can re-make learning and sometimes in ways that conventional systems can’t (or won’t) attempt.
Whether the goal is to develop STEM prodigies, close gaps in equity, or prepare students for an increasingly dynamic work environment, these efforts reveal the ambitions and limitations of billionaire philanthropy in education. Below are eight of the most widely debated efforts causing ripples in the discussion today.
1. Elon Musk’s Ad Astra: STEM to the Stars
Elon Musk’s new school initiative, Ad Astra of Bastrop, Texas, will launch in the fall of 2025 with just 21 students aged three to nine. Funded by his foundation at an estimated $100 million, the school curriculum marries experiential, project-based learning with a heavy STEM focus appropriate for its Latin name, “to the stars.”
Compared to Montessori, but in harmony with similarly like-minded child-centered philosophy, Ad Astra wishes to expand to be a full university.
Its former California iteration became Astra Nova, which currently teaches around 300 students online with lessons ranging from special relativity to hacking ethics. Education would be “as close to a video game as possible,” Musk said, a step toward interactive, curiosity-driven learning.
2. Mark Zuckerberg’s Primary School Winds Down
Founded in 2016 by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, The Primary School in California was formed as a mission to unite healthcare and education for low-income individuals. With more than 95% of its students being underrepresented minorities, it blended academics with parent wellness coaching and medical treatment.
But in April 2025, the school announced that it would close by 2026, as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative back away from social activism.
The two gave $50 million to assist affected communities, including students’ savings accounts. Despite its closure, the model earned national recognition for treating “toxic stress” in children, as Chan once described, and for showing how wraparound services could become part of schooling.
3. Jeff Bezos’ Montessori-Inspired Network
Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Academy has been expanding consistently since it first opened its preschool in 2020. Operated by the Bezos Day One Fund, the no-cost, Montessori-method schools serve three- to five-year-olds in under-resourced neighborhoods in states like Arizona, Texas, and Hawaii.
Bezos himself attended a Montessori school, and the academy’s mission is to reflect that impactImage Credit to depositphotos.com self-directed learning, mixed-age classrooms, and cultivating curiosity. By removing tuition as a barrier, the network seeks to put early childhood education to work as a lever for long-term equity.
4. Laurene Powell Jobs and the XQ High School Revolution
Laurene Powell Jobs’ XQ Institute has committed $300 million to “reimagining high school” for a new world. Its marquee XQ Super School Project received 1,500 ideas, eventually supporting 10 new high schools with $100 million for innovative approaches. High schools like Memphis’s Crosstown High apply project-based learning to replicate real-world problem-solving, and statewide collaborations, like in Rhode Island, have created the most substantial graduation requirements in state history.
Not all projects have been successful some schools closed or stalled but XQ’s emphasis on community involvement and equity provisions, like accommodations for caregiving students, has influenced policy beyond its own network.
5. Bill Ackman’s AI-Powered Alpha Schools
Alpha School, run by hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, is making waves with its AI-powered model: core subjects in just two hours a day, complemented with life skills workshops like “Startup Founder” or “Friendship Coordinator.” AI-created personalized learning plans are guided by guides instead of traditional teachers.
While fees range from $40,000 to $75,000, Alpha is expanding out of Florida and Texas into New York and Puerto Rico. Some oppose whether AI that replaces teachers will be able to meet students’ social-emotional needs, but others see it as “the first truly breakthrough innovation in K-12 education” since KIPP, says Ackman’s X tweet.
6. Ken Griffin’s Charter and Tutoring Push
Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has spent tens of millions on education, including $35 million to Success Academy charter schools and $24 million for national tutoring access. In 2025, he partnered with Bezos Family Foundation on a $7 million math tutoring pilot in Miami public schools.
Griffin’s philanthropy spans from top universities to community colleges, but his recent focus on Florida where he relocated his company suggests an opportunistic investment in the local talent pipeline as well as scalable interventions like high-dosage tutoring.
7. Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy for Girls
Founded in 2007 in South Africa, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls boasts a 1% acceptance rate and more than 525 graduates. Built with $40 million of her own funds, the boarding school attracts intellectually gifted girls from disadvantaged backgrounds, balancing rigorous academics with mentorship and the African value of Ubuntu placing emphasis on compassion, humanness, and community.
Executive director Gugu Ndebele describes how empowering girls “returns high dividends in terms of ending the cycle of poverty,” with beneficial cascading impacts on health, economic growth, and generations to come.
8. LeBron James’ I Promise School Model
Open since 2018 in partnership with Akron Public Schools, LeBron James’ I Promise School teaches students who are on the verge of getting behind, offering extended school days and wraparound services for both kids and families. They feature a food pantry, laundry facilities, and after-school programs, funded by the LeBron James Family Foundation and partners.
Executive director Michele Campbell deems it “a model for the rest of the country” in urban public schools simply because it exists within the public system and not outside of it. The long-term partnerships, she goes on to say, are the key to sustaining impact.
From Musk’s STEM micro-school to Oprah’s Ubuntu-infused academy, these for-profit ventures illustrate the varied forms billionaire power is molding the future of education. Some threaten radical transformation, others long-term community engagement but all reflections of the entrepreneurs’ personal ideologies. Whether these pilot programs will expand or remain niche, they’re already sparking debates about equity, innovation, and the role of private fortune in public schooling.
