My numbers are just fine. $20K a year is a typical PhD scholarship amount. In most western countries scholarships are tax free, and PhD students that need more usually do some teaching or RA work. Facilities: The University that received the money. Materials: A computer.
Every single one could be working on figuring out how to extend his quantity/quality of life
This made it sound like he would be hiring PhDs. If he gave a scholarship to 100,000 PhDs, very few of them would end up working on anything related to extending Larry Ellison's life.
I would have said postdocs if that's what I meant. I see very focused industry sponsored PhD scholarships all the time. I don't see why this would be any different.
You seem confused about the terminology. I think you meant "PhD candidates". If you're talking about "hiring a PhD", this is a person who has earned his/her PhD and is in the field. A postdoc is specifically a person still pursuing additional research at an educational institution, still working with a faculty mentor, and usually alongside PhD candidates and other postdocs.
I usually try to let these little nerd arguments go, but I'm going to make an exception. Your insulting response defending such a tenuous position deserves a swift rejoinder.
You don't give a scholarship to someone with a PhD. You give them a salary or a grant and occasionally an award or a bursary or a fellowship. You are arguing for the <1% case when someone has chosen a poor, confusing sounding moniker for what is essentially one of these other things.
I think your numbers are off by a couple orders of magnitude.