RICH people give too little to charity, too late, one of the world’s most generous patrons of the arts said yesterday.

Alberto Vilar, a Cuban-American billionaire who has given away $200 million in a decade, believes that the affluent of all levels, from billionaires down to those earning a decent wage, need to start making big donations to charity as soon as they can.

Mr Vilar said that Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, was worth billions before he shared his fortune, but he has more than made up for it since, having now given away an estimated $25 billion (£15 billion).

The British elite are less generous with their wealth than their counterparts in the United States, Mr Vilar said. Experts countered his remarks yesterday by saying that that was due in large part to the different welfare and tax systems.

Mr Vilar said that the very rich were failing to set an example. “Everyone should share their wealth, but when you get $5 billion or $10 billion and you’re not giving anything away, it’s really ludicrous,” he said, speaking to The Times before he makes a speech to the annual conference of the Association of British Orchestras in Liverpool tomorrow.

“There are many, many, many multimillionaires and many centimillionaires that have not done much either, who haven’t written their first cheque.”

Mr Vilar’s recent gifts include $50 million to the Kennedy Centre in Washington, $45 million to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, $20 million to the Kirov in St Petersburg and $14 million to Los Angeles Opera.

His donations in Britain include £10 million to the Royal Opera House’s redevelopment of the Vilar Floral Hall, £6.9 million to its Vilar Young Artists’ Programme and millions for the installation of electronic subtitling.

Mr Vilar, who lived in Britain during the 1980s, said that the British super-rich needed to do more to set an example to the middle classes. He said that the postwar honeymoon of relying on state funding for everything was over.

“If you earn £50,000 a year, give £500 or £1,000. When you graduate and start your first job, just give something back. If you get lucky some day, and hit the lottery . . . write a big cheque.”

He said that Dame Vivien Duffield was one of the few role models in Britain, citing her work in leading the £100 million appeal to rebuild Covent Garden.

Dame Vivien said: “It is very tricky to start talking about this subject because of the economy. A lot of people have lost a lot of money.

The trouble is that in hard times people use that as an excuse, whether it’s true or not.”

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