SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said Monday that he will give every child in the United States one of his shares in the company next year.
By the numbers: 72 million children under 18 lived in the US as of July 1, 2025, per official census data, and SpaceX closed at $146.03 a share on Friday, putting the pledge near $10.5 billion.
- "This will be the first of many," Musk said in a post on X, offering no further detail on how the giveaway would happen.
Zoom in: Musk owns about 4.8 billion SpaceX shares according to an August SEC filing, a figure that rises to 6.4 billion counting unvested awards and stock options, or a 48.4% beneficial stake.
The backstory: The post followed Anthropic's plan to commit 5% of its shares to a new public benefit fund. Replying to Anthropic on X on Sunday, Musk wrote: "I recommend giving the shares directly to the public," and said that is what he would do.
- Altimeter Capital's Brad Gerstner, founder of Invest America and Trump Accounts, called it "the largest philanthropic gift in history" and suggested the shares could be distributed through Trump accounts.
Yes, but: Musk has a spotty record on philanthropic promises. He gave about $38 million to OpenAI between 2016 and 2020 after pledging up to $1 billion, and he skipped a 2021 pledge of $6 billion to the UN World Food Program even after the agency published a plan.
What's next: CNBC says it has asked SpaceX and Musk's family office for details. Open questions include which children qualify, whether a holding period applies before they can sell, and how a share would be claimed or held.
Why it matters: SpaceX is private, so a share's worth depends on rules that have yet to exist. Musk's own political spending shows the scale he operates at: more than $276 million to Republican groups since July, including $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund in September.
