Elon Musk has pledged to give every child in the United States one SpaceX share next year, a transfer that could distribute about $10.5 billion in stock to American children.
The billionaire founder of SpaceX, Neuralink and xAI made the announcement on social media on Monday, but did not explain how the proposed donation would be organised.
Musk’s statement implies that 72 million shares would be allocated to 72 million Americans under the age of 18, based on official census data. At SpaceX’s closing share price of $146.03 on Friday, the total value of the proposed distribution would be $10.5 billion.
“This will be the first of many,” Musk added, suggesting that further donations could follow to support the future of American children.
Musk, widely described as the richest person on earth, has a net worth of more than $900 billion, according to Bloomberg. Most of his wealth comes from shares in SpaceX and Tesla.
The pledge follows Anthropic’s disclosure that it would commit 5% of its shares to a public benefit fund. The artificial intelligence company said it would increase that commitment as its value grew, up to a maximum of 20%. Musk had previously recommended that Anthropic distribute the shares to the public.
No mechanism has yet been confirmed for transferring the value of the SpaceX shares. Musk appeared to suggest that the donation could be made through the Invest America programme, commonly known as Trump Accounts, which began accepting stock donations in July.
The US Treasury Department has automatically allocated nearly 70 million accounts for children. Those accounts can be claimed after identity verification.
Musk has previously expressed support for transferring wealth directly to citizens. In June, as the government considered taking ownership stakes in artificial intelligence companies and creating a sovereign fund, he said sending money directly to people would be a better approach.
In April, Musk also advocated direct government payments to citizens as a possible response to unemployment caused by AI’s disruption of the workplace.
Despite warning about the impact of AI on jobs, Musk has remained optimistic about its economic effects. At the time, he said artificial intelligence would “produce goods and services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation.”
Ideas linked to universal basic income are receiving greater consideration as AI-related job cuts become more common across high-tech industries.
