Elon Musk pledges to give a SpaceX share to every U.S. child

Key points

• Elon Musk said he plans to give one SpaceX share to every child in the U.S.
• Musk did not specify how the shares would be distributed or other details.
• There are about 73 million children in the U.S., according to Census Bureau data.

Elon Musk said in a social media post on Monday that he plans to give one of his SpaceX shares to each child in the U.S., writing that the gift "will be the first of many." Musk did not specify how the shares would be distributed or other details of how the pledge might be fulfilled.

The offer came a day after AI company Anthropic announced it will commit 5% of its shares to a new "public benefit" fund. SpaceX shares rose $3.46, or 2.7%, to $149.49 in Monday morning trading, and the company will report quarterly earnings on Tuesday.

Musk's stake and scale

Musk is SpaceX's largest shareholder with a 10.5% stake, according to financial data firm FactSet. His stake included 4.8 billion shares when the company went public earlier this year, an event that briefly made Musk the world's first trillionaire.

There are about 73 million children in the U.S., according to Census Bureau data. Musk, the world's richest person, is currently worth about $904 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

American children will immediately be invested in the American dream.

— Michael Piwowar

Possible route for the gift

Musk could conceivably use the recently created Trump Accounts program to gift SpaceX shares to U.S. children. Under Treasury rules, donors can deliver stock to the accounts without paying capital-gains taxes.

Michael Piwowar, executive director of Georgetown McDonough's Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy, called Trump Accounts the "perfect vehicle" for such a gift. The Treasury Department is automatically enrolling up to 60 million children in the program, which offers a $1,000 government seed donation to U.S. citizens born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028.