Musk Says He Will Give One SpaceX Share to Every American Child Next Year

Elon Musk said Monday he plans to give one of his SpaceX shares to every child in America next year, a pledge that would transfer a slice of the $2 trillion aerospace company to tens of millions of young Americans.

“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Monday. “This will be the first of many.”

SpaceX shares closed at about $146 on Friday. With roughly 73 million people under the age of 18 in the United States, according to the Census Bureau, the giveaway would be worth about $10.7 billion at the current share price.

Musk offered few details. It is unclear how the shares would be distributed to the country’s children or whether all of them would qualify.

A response to Anthropic’s benefit fund

The pledge came a day after Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot, said it would commit 5 percent of its shares, worth $48 billion at the company’s latest private valuation, to a new “Public Benefit Fund” to donate to social causes. Anthropic said the money could help offset the effect of artificial intelligence on jobs.

Musk answered on X: “I recommend giving the shares directly to the public… This is what I will be doing.”

The push to put young Americans in the market

Musk’s idea is not the first effort to give children a stake in the stock market. This month, the Treasury Department automatically enrolled millions of people under 18 in Trump Accounts, a new federal savings and investment vehicle. Children born between the start of 2025 and the end of 2028 are eligible for a one-time $1,000 government contribution.

In July, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and her husband pledged to donate one SpaceX share to each of about 2 million children already signed up for an account, saying they would give priority to children from lower-income households and in SpaceX’s home state of Texas.

Musk signed the Giving Pledge in 2012, the commitment by wealthy individuals to donate most of their fortune. In 2021 he said he would sell $6 billion of Tesla stock and give it to the United Nations World Food Programme if the organization showed how the money could “solve world hunger.” The donation has not materialized, according to CNN.

Both pledges arrived as artificial intelligence companies face growing criticism over the safety of their products, the possible displacement of workers, and the effect of their data centers on local communities. SpaceX went public in June in the largest initial public offering in history.

Reporting based on coverage by CNN.