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Elon Musk has pledged to give every child in the United States one SpaceX share in 2027, but he hasn’t explained how the giveaway would work.
Musk announced the plan in a post on X on Monday, October 19. He wrote that next year he will give “one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America,” and he described it as the first of several such gifts. The post came a day after Anthropic announced a new public benefit fund.
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
On Sunday, October 18, Anthropic said it was creating the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a new entity that will hold part of its equity for public benefit purposes. Anthropic set it up as a wholly owned limited liability company instead of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit so that the fund can adjust between different forms of giving. Subject to stockholder approval, it will commit 5% of its shares at the start, and the board can add another 2% for every 50% increase in the company’s value above a set baseline. Anthropic says it will not use any of the equity for lobbying or political giving.
The company also said that, including earlier pledges, roughly 20% of its shares will be dedicated to the public good. Its co-founders pledged at the outset to donate 80% of their equity, and about half of its employees take part in an equity donation matching program. Anthropic said the fund could make large donations to nonprofits or distribute funds directly to specific groups of people. It has not disclosed the valuation baseline, but will share more about the fund’s structure and governance in the coming months.
The announcement comes as AI companies face increasingly negative public opinion and as Anthropic prepares for a possible public listing. No listing date has been announced.
Musk responded the same day on X, recommending that Anthropic offer shares directly to the public, and said he planned to do the same.
SpaceX began trading publicly in June in what was reported as the largest initial public offering in history, and its shares closed at about $146 on Friday, October 16. An SEC filing cited by Benzinga showed that Musk held a 48.4% stake as of June 30. Musk did not say how many children would be covered. However, an estimate put the number of American minors at roughly 70 million, which at Friday’s price would be about $10 billion in stock. This is an estimate, because Musk has not defined who counts as a child.
Musk has not yet disclosed:
- Which class of SpaceX shares would be given;
- How recipients would be identified;
- How the shares would be legally transferred to minors,
- When in 2027 this would happen and how taxes would apply.
The gift’s final value would also depend on SpaceX’s share price when any transfers take place.
Some reports have pointed to Trump Accounts as a possible way to distribute the shares. These are tax-advantaged investment accounts for children, and President Trump said the Treasury Department has automatically created them for more than 60 million children. Musk has not said whether he would use them. In July, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell and her husband pledged SpaceX shares to Trump Accounts for more than two million children.
