Elon Musk said earlier this week that he plans to give every American child a share of EspaceX next year, and Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Wednesday that stock donations would come through Trump accounts.
If that happens, this $10.5 billion stock gift is just the beginning, according to Gerstner, founder of Invest America and architect of Trump Accounts, the new tax-deferred investment accounts for children.
“Elon is the tip of the iceberg,” Gerstner told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in an exclusive interview Wednesday. “It’s the most generous country on the planet,” he said. “I told the president I think I can raise $100 billion over the next 12 months to sponsor every child in America.” Besides Musk, Gerstner said he also spoke to “all the major CEOs and founders in the tech industry.”
A fundraising goal of $100 billion would represent about one-sixth of all U.S. charitable giving. Americans gave $592.5 billion in 2024, according to the latest data from the National Philanthropic Trust.
Gerstner committed about $35 million to help create investment accounts for children in his home state of Indiana.
The U.S. Treasury Department put in place temporary regulations in late September allowing Trump accounts to hold given individual stocks, a change from previous guidance that allowed only low-cost, diversified index funds.
“Treasury has targeted this exclusion at mega-donors and large philanthropic foundations, such as the Dells, who have made a multibillion-dollar charitable commitment,” said Adam Bergman, founder of IRA Financial and a Miami-based tax attorney. “This allows them to donate large blocks of publicly traded stock without triggering substantial capital gains taxes.”
The decision to allow stock donations could pave the way for larger-scale donations, and a number of other philanthropists are poised to participate, Frank Bisignano, CEO of the Internal Revenue Service, also told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Oct. 8.
“They range from small to mega,” he said. “We have nine-figure mega donors, you know, loads.”
In the broader world of charitable giving, temporary Treasury regulations also give donors unusual influence over children’s investments, according to lawyers and philanthropic experts who spoke with CNBC.
Future expansion of the Trump account
Gerstner also said Wednesday that there is a push to expand access to the accounts to all U.S. citizens under the age of 40.
“Why not bring forward 20 years of IRAs? We can create them all today,” he said. “So if Elon then says, I want to give everyone under 40, or if OpenAI says I want to give everyone under 40, there’s a vehicle, there’s a vessel that they can start composing in… that’s the kind of thing we’re working on.”
In addition to more than 70 million children under 18 in the United States, about 90 million U.S. citizens are between the ages of 18 and 40, according to CNBC’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
However, expanding Trump accounts to Americans under 40 would require a legislative change by Congress.
In an article published Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, called the proposed expansion a “game changer” and said he would “lead the bill through the Senate to make it happen.”
Gerstner told CNBC on Wednesday that raising the Trump account age limit was “very popular” among Democrats and Republicans in Congress. But it’s unclear whether the proposal has the legislative support needed to become law.
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