- Elon Musk pledged to give one SpaceX share to every child in America next year, a roughly $10.5 billion giveaway at Friday’s closing price.
- He made the promise a day after criticizing Anthropic’s plan to route at least 5% of its equity into a public benefit fund.
- AI and finance figures disagree over whether corporate wealth should flow through charities or straight to the public.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) founder and CEO, Elon Musk announced early Monday that every child in the United States will receive one unit each of his shares in the Starship maker next year.
Musk committed to the giveaway estimated at roughly $10.5 billion within a day of publicly criticizing the new charity fund that Anthropic announced ahead of its upcoming IPO.
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
What did Musk promise American children?
In his early Monday morning X post, Elon Musk promised to “give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America” next year. The Tesla founder also teased future giveaways, writing that it is “the first of many.”
However, Musk did not go into detail on how the giveaway would work or who qualifies for the “kid” designation.
Per the Census Bureau data, over 72 million people are under the age of 18 in the US. SpaceX’s SPCX stock closed at $146.03 per unit on Friday. At that rate, the giveaway Musk promised for 2027 would be worth a little over $10.5 billion.
Before Musk’s October commitment, SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell made a similar share pledge to 2 million Trump accounts. That gift is worth close to $300 million at current prices.
The nearly $11 billion Musk promised is nearly double the record-breaking gift Michael Dell made to federal Trump accounts.
Anthropic’s public fund triggered Musk’s SpaceX giveaway
Musk’s SpaceX share commitment came one day after Anthropic said it would commit at least 5% of its equity to a new public benefit fund, as Cryptopolitan reported. The entity could be worth $100 billion or more at the IPO valuation the company is rumored to be pursuing.
Anthropic said it would set up a separate corporation to hold the shares and make donations.
Musk reacted directly to the news, writing “I recommend giving the shares directly to the public.” The SpaceX founder added, “This is what I will be doing.”
Musk was not the only critic. Business Insider reported that Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner warned about “foundation wealth concentration” despite praising the “extraordinary gift,” and added that he hoped a chunk of AI wealth would arrive as “a direct dividend.”
NYU professor Gary Marcus was harsher, writing that “Anthropic is playing games here” and that the plan “reeks of desperation.”
Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights and Strategy asked why the company did not simply hand the money to citizens who “would know what to do with the money better than bureaucratic institutions.”
Musk’s jab is directed at a company his SpaceX does business with. As Cryptopolitan reported, Anthropic pays SpaceX $1.25 billion a month for compute through May 2029, a run rate near $15 billion a year, and Musk earlier called the lab “clearly” the current leader in AI after walking back a 2025 dismissal.
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FAQs
What exactly did Elon Musk promise?
Musk said on X that next year he would give one of his SpaceX shares to every "kid" in America and called it "the first of many," though he did not define who counts as a kid.
How much is the SpaceX share giveaway worth?
With just over 72 million people under 18 in the US and SpaceX trading at $146.03 at Friday's close, the pledge carries a market value of a little over $10.5 billion, which is nearly double Michael Dell's record Trump accounts gift.
Why did Musk make the pledge now?
It came one day after Anthropic announced a public benefit fund holding at least 5% of its equity, which Musk responded to by recommending shares go directly to the public and saying that is what he would do.
Hannah Collymore
Hannah is a writer and editor with nearly a decade of blog writing and event reporting experience in the crypto space. At Cryptopolitan, Hannah contributes to the news page, reporting and analyzing the latest developments in DeFi, RWA, crypto regulation, AI and frontier tech industries. She graduated from Arcadia university with a degree in Business Administration.
