A public back-and-forth over how companies should share their wealth has ended with a new pledge from Elon Musk, who says every child in America will receive a piece of SpaceX.
The exchange began with Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company led by Dario Amodei. The firm announced that it would reserve 5 percent of its shares for a “public benefit” fund.
Anthropic laid out the plan in a post on X.
“We’re committing a portion of Anthropic’s shares to the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a new wholly owned entity dedicated entirely to the public benefit. It will start off with 5% of our shares. For every 50% increase in the company’s value over a set baseline, we can contribute up to an extra 2%, subject to our board’s discretion.”
Under that structure, the company’s board decides whether any additional shares go into the fund.
The extra contributions depend on the company’s value climbing above a set baseline.
Musk answered the announcement with a critique. “I recommend giving the shares directly to the public,” he wrote.
He then added a second line. “This is what I will be doing.”
Early Monday morning, Musk followed through with a post on X that put numbers and a timeline behind those words.
“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America. This will be the first of many,” Musk wrote.
More than 10 million people have viewed the post since he published it.
Musk, the first trillionaire, did not explain how the giveaway would work.
His post said nothing about how the shares would reach children or what the “many” steps to follow would include.
The Census Bureau counts roughly 72 million people in the United States under the age of 18. One share for each of them would add up to about $10.5 billion in stock.
That figure rests on SpaceX’s closing price on Friday, when shares finished the day near $146. At the close, the company’s market capitalization stood just under $2 trillion.
Musk holds 48.4 percent of SpaceX, a stake of 6.42 billion shares.
His post gave a single timing detail. The giveaway starts “Next year,” according to Musk, and he has not said when any later steps would follow.
The two announcements take different routes.
Anthropic is directing a portion of its shares into a new, wholly owned entity built around the public benefit. Musk is describing a transfer of one share to each child.
Anthropic’s fund begins at 5 percent of the company’s shares.
Musk’s post names a single share per child and gives no total for how much he intends to give beyond that.
Musk made the pledge after the Friday market close and after Anthropic revealed its fund. Both companies announced their plans on X.
Neither Musk nor SpaceX has released further information about the giveaway since the post went live.
