There was no chainsaw in sight when he made the promise, but billionaire tech developer Elon Musk announced he would give one free SpaceX share to every child in America.
"This will be the first of many," Musk wrote on his own social media platform X. His post garnered 35 million views, with many expressing thanks on behalf of their kids and others writing sentiments like this one from user: "Another populist move by the most corrupted billionaire." Many others asked where their DOGE refund was, a nod to Musk's aborted effort to slash government on behalf of his former friend President Donald Trump and send taxpayers relief checks.
The offer of shares in his mega-company come as AI giant Anthropic also announced plans to give billions of dollars in shares to the public while the country -- and the world --- grapple with what life will look like after AI reaches full potential. Many believe that will shutter huge swaths of the job market.
The details of how this distribution will work remain unclear, but here's the math.
There are about 73 million children in the U.S., according to Census Bureau data and based on the price of SpaceX shares, the donation could amount to $10.8 billion. Musk, the world's first trillionaire, is worth about $904 billion, give or take based on stock market fluctuations.
Anthropic also plans to pledge shares to a public benefit fund to address labor market impacts of AI technology. Specifically, the AI company pledged to commit 5% of its shares to a new "public benefit" fund. Anthropic added it will contribute an additional 2% of shares for every 50% increase in the company's value, above a set threshold.
How would that be distributed to the public? Again, there are no details.
"Because of the way the Fund is structured, the more Anthropic grows, the larger the share of the company that can be dedicated expressly to the public good," Anthropic said in a public statement.
When both announcements made waves on social media, President Donald Trump, who famously had a falling out with Musk, wrote on his own accounts, claiming the SpaceX shares would be donated through the recently created Trump Accounts program. The accounts, under new rules laid out by the Treasury, creates a stock account seeded with $1,000 for every kid in America under the age of 18. Once claimed, the accounts are meant to grow like a 401K, building up passive wealth for kids to cash in on as adults.
Trump thanked Musk for his "incredible generosity" and called the planned donation "exactly what was envisioned when we created TRUMP ACCOUNTS."
Musk did not confirm or deny if its stock donation had any tie to Trump accounts. CNBC noted it had reached out for confirmation and had not gotten a response.
They also added that Musk has a 'spotty record' when it come to fulfilling his charitable promises.
"For example, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO contributed about $38 million to OpenAI, which he co-founded as a nonprofit research lab, between 2016 and 2020. But he had promised to contribute up to $1 billion, and cut off donations to the organization amid a battle with cofounders for control of the company.
"In 2021, Musk said he would donate $6 billion to the United Nations World Food Program if it could show him a plan for how they’d use the money to “solve world hunger.” While the WFP posted a plan, Musk did not donate. Musk’s foundation has also repeatedly fallen shy of making the minimum donations it’s required to by law, and as The New York Times previously reported, its donations go to charities that closely benefit Musk and his companies directly."
While Musk's distribution plan is still a mystery, he did reply to Anthropic's pledge about the public fund with this: “I recommend giving the shares directly to the public.” He added, "that’s what he’d be doing."
