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Elon Musk said earlier this week that he plans to give every kid in America a share of SpaceX next year, and CEO of Altimeter Capital Brad Gerstner said Wednesday that the stock donations would come via Trump Accounts.
If it happens, that donation of $10.5 billion worth of shares is just the beginning, according to Gerstner, the founder of Invest America and an architect of Trump Accounts, the new tax-deferred investing accounts for kids.
"Elon is the tip of the iceberg," Gerstner told CNBC's "Squawk Box" in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. "This is the most giving country on the planet," he said. "I told the president, I think I can raise $100 billion over the course of the next 12 months to sponsor all of the kids in America." In addition to Musk, Gerstner said he had also talked to "every major tech CEO and founder."
A $100-billion fundraising target would represent about one-sixth of all U.S. charitable giving. Altogether, Americans donated $592.5 billion in 2024, according to the latest data from the National Philanthropic Trust.
Gerstner has also committed about $35 million to help seed the investment accounts for kids in his home state of Indiana.
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The U.S. Department of the Treasury rolled out temporary regulations at the end of September, which allow Trump Accounts to hold donated individual stocks, a change from previous guidelines that only allowed diversified, low-cost index funds.
"The Treasury targeted this carve-out at mega-donors and large philanthropic foundations, such as the Dells, who made a multibillion-dollar charitable pledge," said Adam Bergman, founder of IRA Financial and a tax attorney based in Miami. "It allows them to donate large blocks of publicly traded stock without triggering substantial capital-gains taxes."
The move to permit stock donations could pave the way for more large-scale gifts, and a number of other philanthropists are poised to participate, Internal Revenue Service CEO Frank Bisignano also told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Oct. 8.
"They range from small to mega," he said. "We do have mega donors in the nine-digit range, you know, bunches of them."
In the broader world of charitable giving, Treasury's temporary regulations also give donors unusual influence over children's investments, according to lawyers and philanthropic experts who spoke with CNBC.
Future Trump Account expansion
Gerstner also said Wednesday that there is a push to expand access to the accounts to all U.S. citizens under age 40.
"Why not pull forward 20 years of IRAs? We can create all of those today," he said. "So if Elon says then, I want to give to everyone under 40, or OpenAI says I want to give to everyone under 40, there's a vehicle, there's a vessel that they can start compounding in….those are the types of things we are working on."
In addition to more than 70 million children under 18 in the U.S., about 90 million U.S. citizens are between 18 and 40 years of age, according to CNBC's analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
However, expanding Trump Accounts to Americans under age 40 would require a legislative change from Congress.
In an X post on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, called the proposed expansion a "game-changer," and said he would "lead the bill in the Senate to make it happen."
Gerstner told CNBC on Wednesday that expanding the Trump Account age limit is "wildly popular" among Congressional Democrats and Republicans. But it's unclear whether the proposal has the legislative backing needed to become law.