Key Takeaways
- Elon Musk pledged to donate $10.5 billion in SpaceX stock to give every U.S. child under 18 one share.
- The stock transfer may route through the government’s Invest America program using treasury-backed accounts.
- The donation aligns with Musk’s push for direct wealth transfers to counter AI workforce disruptions.
Musk Pledges Over $10 Billion Worth of SpaceX Shares
Elon Musk, the richest person on earth, has pledged to transfer part of his stock holdings to American children.
On Monday, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, Neuralink, and xAI announced on social media that he would give each kid in America a share of SpaceX next year. The announcement implies Musk will transfer 72 million shares to 72 million American children under 18, as official census data indicates.
Musk’s pledge means $10.5 billion worth of SpaceX shares will be distributed to American kids, using the stock’s closing price of $146.03 as of Friday.
“This will be the first of many,” Musk added, hinting at more donations to fund the future of every American child. According to Bloomberg, Musk has a net worth of over $900 billion, with most of his fortune coming from shares owned in SpaceX and Tesla.
Musk’s donation comes after Anthropic disclosed that it would commit 5% of its shares to a public benefit fund, vowing to expand this number as the company’s value rises, up to a 20% limit. At the time, Musk recommended that Anthropic give the shares to the public.
While Musk did not specify the process to complete this value transfer, he hinted it could happen through the Invest America program, commonly known as Trump Accounts, which opened to stock donations in July. Nearly 70 million accounts have been automatically allocated for children by the U.S. Treasury Department and can be claimed with ID verification.
Musk’s opinions on wealth distribution to citizens have been consistent. In June, when the government mulled taking ownership in AI companies and establishing a sovereign fund, Musk stressed that sending money directly to the people was a better idea.
In April, Musk also promoted direct intervention via government checks to citizens as a solution to unemployment caused by AI’s disruption in the workplace. Musk remains an optimist about the future of AI: At the time, he stressed that it will “produce goods and services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation.”
