On Monday, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, announced that next year he intends to give every child in America one share of SpaceX stock. At a reported share valuation of $146.03 and with roughly 72 million Americans under 18, the proposed largesse amounts to approximately $10.5 billion. That's a great many birthday envelopes from a man who apparently has no intention of running out of pocket money. That’s how rich he is.
And so begins a peculiarly American domestic comedy. Daddy has opened his wallet, and the children must decide whether accepting his money constitutes an unforgivable betrayal of their principles.
The answer, surely, is no. But what fun we shall have pretending otherwise, given the current state of affairs in America, where even accepting a gift can amount to an act of ideological treason.
Musk is an appropriate protagonist for this little family drama. After all, fatherhood occupies a conspicuous place in his public life, while his extraordinary fortune has made him something like a patriarch of the technological age. He's a man whose companies promise to shape the world his 14 children, and everyone else's, will inherit.
Now he proposes to put a little of that inheritance in millions of American pockets.
One can almost hear the adolescent negotiations.
Dad, you're embarrassing. Your politics are impossible. Please don't speak to my friends. Also, is the money coming Friday?
There is something gloriously Freudian about the arrangement. America, that great republic of self-declared independence, finds itself contemplating an allowance from a billionaire whose public pronouncements are hardly universally beloved.
But beneath the family melodrama lies a rather adult question.
When did accepting something from someone become synonymous with approving of everything they stand for?
A SpaceX share is not a loyalty oath but more of a financial asset. And if a billionaire wishes to distribute some of his fortune, why must the recipient first produce a notarized declaration of ideological purity?
Of course, Dad is not entirely innocent.
Musk's announcement followed rival AI company Anthropic's pledge to dedicate 5 percent of its shares to a public-benefit fund. Musk proposed giving shares directly to ordinary people instead. The timing places this extraordinary display of generosity within the increasingly theatrical competition among technology's richest men. How…unrelatable.
And $10.5 billion, while an astronomical sum to most Americans, would represent roughly just 1 percent of a trillion-dollar fortune.
There may also be practical advantages to Musk’s supposed generosity. The shares could be distributed through Trump Accounts, the government-backed investment accounts for children, potentially creating millions of young shareholders with a financial interest in SpaceX's success.
Whether that translates into affection, loyalty or political goodwill is another matter entirely.
Children are notoriously unreliable investments in gratitude.
A teenager can despise his father's opinions, but borrow his car and ask for gas money before breakfast. Indeed, the whole point of growing up is discovering that financial assistance and intellectual independence can coexist. So, why should the relationship between Americans and Musk be different?
There’s a catch, of course.
Musk has promised the shares, not distributed them. Until the stock actually arrives, America's children are receiving a magnificent announcement rather than a magnificent gift. Daddy, it seems, has promised to raise our allowance one day in the near future.
The important thing to keep in mind here is that gratitude does not need to come with lifelong obedience, especially since Musk isn't an elected official. Let him keep his politics and his sometimes peculiar vision of the future and just take the stock, thank him politely in your head and continue disagreeing with him as much as you'd like.
After all, isn't that the oldest arrangement between wealthy fathers and their rebellious children? The offspring denounce the patriarch's values, deplore his behavior and announce their fierce independence, preferably from the comfort of a house he's paying for.
So thank you, Daddy Musk. Assuming the check clears, we'll take the allowance.
Just don't expect us to come downstairs for family dinner.