As a few people have mentioned, I have a very different financial background than SBF in that everyone knows how I became wealthy. In cinematic detail, no less!

Moreover, as an American citizen and California resident, audits aren't just a fun intellectual exercise for me - they really happen 😲. Recently (culminating in 2021), the California Franchise Tax Board audited my 2016-2018 filings. Here's what my accountant wrote me about that: 

they have issued a “No Change” report.  This audit was so extensive they literally ticked and tied every number on your tax return back to original source documents.  We responded to a number of Information Document Requests (IDRs) and had over 20 video calls with the FTB team to talk them through various reporting positions on investments you hold.  In talking with the lead agent on our audit conclusion call he said “we didn’t even find a rounding error……….great work on the tax reporting.”  For tax filings of this size this is the Super Bowl victory for us geeky accountants.

We run self audits every year to prepare for the real ones, and I generally  see no benefit to trying to get away with cheating at wealth generation when there are many legitimate options in front of me. (e.g. when I'm not fishing for karma on twitter, I run the enterprise software company Asana. Check it out!)

Would an independent auditor go deeper somehow than the govt who's trying to find fraud and generate revenue? I guess so, maybe? Maybe you'll trust that I didn't fabricate the above? I'm open to it, but generally skeptical it's actually adding that much. Perhaps PR self-oppo (like politicians do) would be a more novel exercise.

The source of Moskovitz’s money is a very well known corporation, no? And large quantities of the money are in a private foundation whose Form 990-PF information is publicly available (although someone could show up at the foundation's place of business and ask to see the 2021 form, or ask it to publish the 2021 data online now). When I glanced at the 990-PF data, it suggested that the money that has been irrevocably committed to charity is in fairly boring / safe investments.

That doesn't necessarily mean further investigation would be a bad idea, but there is already far more information available than there was for SBF (whose wealth was in a privately-held company and whose charitable foundation was brand new).

I am also not sure what anyone would do with any potential derogatory information. If -- hypothetically -- we found out tomorrow that all of Moskovitz’s money somehow came from a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme, what then? Of course, no one should take any more of that money, but I am not convinced the risk that Moskovitz is SBF 0.5 could be effectively mitigated. 

The idea that that EA needs to be more aware of potential major risks relating to its most pivotal funder is a valid one. However, there are a range of donor-related risks, and potential fraud is rather low on the threat list here. It is just more salient given recent events. Better to focus on contingency planning that would cover any number of much more likely reasons Moskovitz's money could largely or entirely dry up -- massive stock market crash, he decides that his foundation should spend its money on other causes, whatever. 

To the extent that discovering Moskovitz is SBF 0.5 would be survivable, I think the plan would be largely the same as for other scenarios in which his money is no longer available.

I don't think anyone should be required to share detailed personal financial information in order to donate

Even from an unsympathetic outside view, there needs to be some cause or at least some narrative to do something like this:

It’s been a decade since Dustin and Holden has been working in philanthropy.  Open Philanthropy worked closely with thousands of people, making hard decisions. There’s a vast amount of trust built up, that is more than just money. This is accumulated evidence in their favor.

Without a reason or even narrative to do so, I think even a high quality investigation or audit will be a waste of time or a distraction. All of this is bad if there are important issues or reforms in EA. 

Pointing at arbitrary people or generating fear is bad.

For Karnofsky in particular:

Holden built GiveWell and Open Phil. Those are really good. And the truth is that making those built a lot of enemies and critics. 

I mean, what do you really think happened with Criminal Justice Reform?

Also, if there was some dumb investigation, it will make my name mean and I’ll have to change it.

For Moskovitz in particular:

I always saw Dustin as an abstract bag of money. This was until two weeks ago when I found out there was an EA Twitter.

I think we should investigate if he is paying someone to be this funny.

I think the reason this hasn't been proposed in a forum post yet is because it would be movement suicide. Suppose you are Moskovitz, and CEA comes to you and says they want you to hand over all of your personal financial records, all kinds of Facebook business records, etc, to some random law firm or whoever to do the audit. What do you think? How do you feel? Obviously you aren't going to do it - that's an insane invasion of your personal privacy, and would reveal a lot of confidential information about your Facebooks business in violation of business norms if not legal agreements. Probably you are going to feel insulted. Certainly you can find plenty of other non-EA charities that would be happy to take your money and say "thank you" no questions asked. You'll probably just do that.

The reality of the situation is that if Moscovitz is another SBF, then EA is screwed. We can't mitigate the risk by seriously investigating Moscovitz. The mitigation strategies available are to see to our own governance better - be prepared to loose funding - take any opportunities to diversify funding sources, build up savings ("endowments") to see us through hard times, document our activities so that if we have to shut down for a few years due to lack of funding, people can pick up the pieces and restart when funding becomes available again.

If there was a consequence-free way to do it, it seems like a good idea. One difference is that Moscovitz’s funding and fortune has been reliable for years. Just by the Lindy principle, it seems on its face to be more likely than SBF’s to continue without scandal or disappearance.

Couple thoughts:

In society, a fundamental problem is the tradeoff between effort spent and information gained.

I could imagine a cursory "audit" that would catch blatant badness, while anything more subtle could take (for instance) experienced lawyers, forensic accountants, and other experts.

Not to mention, the access they'd need to these figures' businesses, organizations, relationships, communications... potentially anything and everything.

Most people wouldn't give such access, but I think you're right that with the unusual situation (1-2 people being a key nexus for funding/influence, inside a movement that tries to be more self-correcting than most), it makes more sense here.

Who should do the audit? Here's some criteria I think could help:

• Orgs that don't get a high/any % of their funding from the individuals/groups under scrutiny.
• People who've been longtime community members with some level of good reputation in it.
• Orgs that do kinda "meta" things about the EA movement, like CEA or Nonlinear (disclosure: I used to volunteer for Nonlinear).