Elon Musk has pledged to give one share of SpaceX to every child in the United States next year, in a giveaway that could be worth more than $10bn. According to Al Jazeera, the world’s richest man announced the plan on X on Monday, writing, “This will be the first…...
Elon Musk has pledged to give one share of SpaceX to every child in the United States next year, in a giveaway that could be worth more than $10bn.
According to Al Jazeera, the world’s richest man announced the plan on X on Monday, writing, “This will be the first of many.”
About 73 million children under the age of 18 live in the US, according to US Census Bureau data. At SpaceX’s closing share price of $146.03 on Friday, the proposed giveaway would be worth approximately $10.7bn.
US President Donald Trump welcomed the pledge on his Truth Social platform, claiming the shares would be distributed to children “through TRUMP ACCOUNTS”, the tax-advantaged investment accounts established for children under his administration’s tax and spending law.
The announcement comes two weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, with Musk emerging as the biggest known donor ahead of the polls after contributing more than $276m to Republican groups since July.
However, Musk has yet to clarify which children will qualify for the giveaway, when the shares will be distributed or how the transfer will be carried out.
How much are the SpaceX shares worth?
SpaceX, described as the world’s seventh-largest company, began trading on the Nasdaq in June following an initial public offering at $135 per share.
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The share price has fluctuated since its market debut, falling 35.3 per cent from its peak in the days following the listing.
The shares were trading at approximately $146 each, meaning every $1 change in the price would alter the total value of the proposed giveaway by about $73m.
According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in August, Musk directly owns 4.8 billion SpaceX shares.
Including unvested awards and stock options, his stake rises to approximately 6.4 billion shares, representing 48.4 per cent of the company.
Distributing 73 million shares would reduce his direct holdings by about 1.5 per cent, with little effect on his control of the company.
A Bloomberg Opinion calculation cited by Al Jazeera indicated that his voting power, currently about 82 per cent because SpaceX has two classes of shares, would decline by only 0.1 percentage points.
The proposed distribution would be the largest single gift linked to Trump accounts so far.
How would the shares reach children?
Musk has not explained how the distribution would work, although Trump said the shares would be held in Trump accounts.
Musk also thanked technology investor Brad Gerstner, who has been involved in the development of the accounts, for “helping enable this”.
The White House says nearly 70 million Trump accounts have been opened, covering children under 18 with Social Security numbers.
Investments in the accounts can grow with taxes deferred until withdrawal when the child turns 18. Alternatively, the funds can be transferred into an individual retirement account, allowing them to retain their tax-advantaged status.
Under Treasury rules published on September 30, donors can give individual company shares to children through the accounts. However, regular contributions from family members and friends are restricted to low-risk index funds.
Families cannot refuse the shares on behalf of their children and generally cannot sell them for five years, or until the end of the year in which the child turns 17, if that comes sooner.
Al Jazeera also reported that Musk cannot sell or trade most of his SpaceX shares until June 2027, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Who stands to gain?
The proposed giveaway could benefit millions of American children, but it also carries political and financial implications for Musk and Trump.
Trump has closely associated himself with the initiative, thanking Musk on Truth Social and describing the pledge as “exactly what was envisioned when we created TRUMP ACCOUNTS”.
The White House has presented the accounts as a major achievement of Trump’s tax legislation, highlighting that “every single Democrat voted against” the law.
The announcement also signals a public reconciliation between Musk and Trump following their disagreement in 2025 over the president’s tax-and-spending bill, a dispute Trump later described as a “little dispute”.
Beyond the political dimension, the gift could offer Musk tax advantages.
According to US broadcaster CNBC, donors who give appreciated shares to charity can avoid capital gains tax and may qualify for tax deductions.
Because Musk acquired his SpaceX shares at a much lower cost, selling $10.7bn worth of them could potentially generate a tax bill of about $2.5bn.
“It is ‘a popular practice for particularly high-income taxpayers that would otherwise be paying a high rate’,” Will McBride, chief economist at the Tax Foundation, told the broadcaster in May.
Ann Lipton, a law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Inc. magazine that millions of shareholders unable to sell their shares would also have an interest in SpaceX’s success and in “minimising its regulatory burdens”.
Mitchell Downey, an economist at Stockholm University’s Institute for International Economic Studies who studies political influence in the US, described the proposal as an example of “the horseshoe aspect of this” — the idea that policies associated with the political right and left can converge.
Downey noted that progressives have advocated Child Development Accounts for decades. The proposed accounts would provide investment funds for newborns as a way of reducing wealth inequality, but the idea struggled to secure federal support.
He suggested that Musk’s pledge and the Trump accounts could help bring the concept into the mainstream.
“It always felt like it might be out of reach,” Downey said. “But I don’t see how Musk’s proposal would be possible without building some infrastructure like this.”
Why does the timing matter?
The pledge comes two weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, which will determine control of both chambers of the US Congress.
All seats in the House of Representatives and approximately one-third of Senate seats are due for re-election.
Trump’s approval rating had fallen to 33 per cent, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll cited by Al Jazeera, amid expectations among political observers that Republicans could lose seats to Democrats.
Musk, who campaigned alongside Trump in 2024 and led the president’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative aimed at reducing the federal workforce, has also contributed heavily to Republican candidates ahead of the elections.
The timing has therefore drawn attention to the potential political implications of a giveaway that would place SpaceX shares in the hands of millions of American children and their families.
## Is the pledge legal, and why is it controversial?
Downey said he did not believe the pledge raised legal concerns, while noting that political donations and spending must comply with applicable laws.
“Individuals are allowed to spend their money in support of a politician,” he told Al Jazeera. “The law only gets violated when either it isn’t publicly reported, or it is part of an explicit and documented quid-pro-quo.”
However, he raised ethical concerns about the influence of wealthy donors on American elections, arguing that the issue extends beyond Musk’s proposal.
Those concerns relate to “the outsized role that external donors play in US elections”, Downey said, comparing the issue to individuals spending heavily on television advertisements in support of political candidates.
## Has anyone done this before?
Downey said it was difficult to assess whether the proposed giveaway had a direct precedent.
Given Musk’s extraordinary wealth, he argued that it was perhaps unsurprising that he was “doing something that involves more money than other very rich people have done”.
He also pointed to the Gates Foundation’s philanthropic work over the past three decades as “a different type of ‘gift to the public’”.
However, he distinguished the foundation’s focus on addressing health crises in Africa and South Asia from Musk’s proposed distribution of shares to children in the United States.
Last year, Bill Gates pledged to “give away virtually all my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world”.