EspaceX CEO Elon Musk said Monday he will give every child in the United States one of his shares in the company next year.
Musk currently owns about 4.8 billion shares of SpaceX stock, according to an August filing with the SEC. This figure rises to 6.4 billion taking into account unvested allocations and stock options, which represents a beneficial interest of 48.4% in the company.
There were 72 million children under the age of 18 in the United States as of July 1, 2025, according to official census data.
That would amount to the CEO handing out about $10.5 billion in stock, taking into account SpaceX’s closing stock price of $146.03 on Friday.
“This will be the first of many,” Musk said in an article on X, without providing further details on how the stock distribution would take place.
CNBC has contacted SpaceX for further comment.
Musk’s financial donations have made headlines in recent weeks, primarily due to his political contributions.
The Tesla CEO has spent more than $276 million on donations to Republican groups since July, making him the largest known donor to the 2026 midterm elections.
The world’s richest person poured $158 million into the Senate Leadership Fund, the Republican Party’s main super PAC, in September through a Texas-affiliated PAC created to support Republican Ken Paxton. Musk’s two contributions, $75 million and $83 million, are among the largest political donations ever.
Musk’s message followed closely on the heels of Anthropic revealing that it planned to commit 5% of its shares to a new public benefit fund, with stakes potentially increasing as the company’s valuation rises.
In response to an Anthropic article on
Subject to shareholder approval, Anthropic’s fund would immediately commit 5% of Anthropic’s shares, with the board adding, at its discretion, an additional 2% for each 50% increase in company value above a defined benchmark that has not yet been disclosed.
The fund could be used to “explore significant donations,” including to traditional nonprofits or for direct distributions to specific populations, or for “bolder approaches” to studying and addressing job disruption and displacement caused by AI, the company said.
— CNBC’s Jennifer Liu contributed to this report.
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