Elon Musk has pledged to give one SpaceX share to every kid in America in 2027, posting on X on Monday: “Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America. This will be the first of many.” Based on the $146 share price at the time, analysts estimate the giveaway would be worth roughly $10.5–10.8 billion.
Elon Musk (Credits: MarketWatch)
Musk provided no details on how the shares would be distributed, held, or which children would qualify. With about 72–73 million children under 18 in the United States, the math works out to roughly 1% of his reported $1 trillion net worth. Musk owns around 849 million Class A common shares and more than 5.5 billion Class B supervoting shares of SpaceX, according to reporting on his holdings.
How Musk’s SpaceX Pledge Connects to Anthropic’s Fund and Trump Accounts
The pledge arrived just hours after Anthropic announced it would put 5% of its shares into a new public benefit fund intended for large donations to nonprofits or direct distributions after its IPO. Musk had replied to that announcement suggesting companies should give “directly to the public” instead — then made his own pledge.
One possible distribution rail already exists: Trump Accounts, the Treasury-run bank accounts for children that can accept stock donations from wealthy donors. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell and her husband already pledged in July to donate SpaceX shares to Trump Accounts for more than two million children aged 11 to 17, particularly those from lower-income communities.
Why Analysts Say “Don’t Hold Your Breath” on the SpaceX Share Pledge
As MarketWatch notes, Musk has a long record of announcements that bear little relation to reality, and the mechanics here are far from simple. SpaceX is a private company — transferring shares to tens of millions of minors would involve complex legal, custodial, and tax questions that no announcement has addressed. The X post remains the only public statement on the plan, and SpaceX had not responded to requests for comment.
The announcements by Musk and Anthropic land as Americans grow increasingly wary of AI: an AP-NORC poll found 64% think AI is developing “too fast,” 27% say “about right,” and only 8% say “too slow.”
Also Read: SpaceX’s AI Business Is Beating Expectations as ‘Super Intelligence’ Becomes Half Its Income | Claude Duet Is Anthropic’s Big Bet on AI Agents
Source: MarketWatch — read the full story there.
