Musk says he’ll gift SpaceX shares to ‘every kid in America’

Elon Musk pledged to distribute a share of SpaceX to each American child, posting the move just hours after artificial intelligence competitor Anthropic PBC said it would set aside a portion of its shares for the public benefit.

“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America,” the company’s chief executive officer wrote on X, the social media platform he owns. “This will be the first of many.”

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

It’s not clear how such share contributions would work, and Musk did not elaborate on his donation plans. There are about 72 million children in the U.S., according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, which would make the donation worth about US$10.5 billion at the current US$146 share price.

His post came after Anthropic disclosed plans to place five per cent of its shares in a fund to make donations that address “the public good.” Regulators across the globe have increased calls for regulating artificial intelligence after insiders flagged the possibility of catastrophic scenarios. Anthropic, which is preparing for a blockbuster public listing, has frequently raised concerns about broad societal risks and dangers of AI. The Claude developer said some of its new fund would go to addressing the “labour market impacts” of the technology.

After Anthropic’s announcement on Sunday, Musk replied to the company’s X account to say he recommends giving shares “directly to the public.”

Musk’s comments come after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration set up the Trump Accounts initiative, which provides US$1,000 to American children born between 2025 and 2028. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said earlier this year that she and her husband had gifted SpaceX stock to a Trump Account for more than 2 million children in the U.S.

Musk is by far the world’s richest person with a net worth of more than US$900 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His SpaceX shares account for the vast majority of that wealth, at about US$700 billion, with the rest coming from Tesla Inc., Boring Co. and Neuralink.

The billionaire has a history of floating ideas that don’t materialize or suggesting plans he later explains away as jokes. Musk pinned his latest post about SpaceX shares to the top of his X page.

Anthropic made its public benefit announcement as it heads toward a highly anticipated initial public offering that could value the AI pioneer at US$1.5 trillion to US$2 trillion. The company said it could add an additional two per cent to the fund at the board’s discretion for every 50 per cent increase in the company’s value above a set baseline.

With assistance from Kate Duffy