Elon Musk said in a social media post on Monday that he plans to give one of his SpaceX shares to every child in the US, writing that the gift “will be the first of many.” Musk did not specify how the shares would be distributed or other details about how the promise could be fulfilled. The offer came a day after artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced it will commit 5% of its shares to a new “public benefit” fund. Anthropic said it will contribute an additional 2% of shares at the discretion of its board of directors for every 50% increase in the company’s value, above a set threshold. Shares of SpaceX, which will report quarterly earnings on Tuesday, rose $3.46, or 2.7%, to $149.49 in Monday morning trading. SpaceX’s CEO is the company’s largest shareholder with a 10.5% stake, according to financial data firm FactSet. His stake included 4.8 billion SpaceX shares when the company went public earlier this year, an event that briefly made Musk the world’s first billionaire. There are about 73 million children in the United States, according to data from the Census Bureau. Musk, the world’s richest person, is currently worth about $904 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Anthropic pledged to commit a portion of its shares to the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, which it described as “a new entity,” at a time when AI researchers at major labs are warning of apocalyptic scenarios with potentially catastrophic outcomes that extend far beyond job losses. Anthropic said the company has a dual mission, with its research providing both a public benefit component and for-profit value. The new fund will give it more flexibility to make large donations to nonprofit organizations or gifts to specific populations, the company added. Anthropic also highlighted the impact of AI on workers, acknowledging that technological advances could “cause instability” for many employees, and noted that it has already committed $200 million to analyze and address the effects of AI on parts of the workforce. “Because of the way the Fund is structured, the more Anthropic grows, the greater the proportion of the company that can be expressly dedicated to the public good,” Anthropic said. President Trump wrote on social media that SpaceX stock would be donated through the recently created Trump Accounts program. The accounts, under new rules set by the Treasury, allow donors to give shares to the accounts without paying capital gains taxes. Trump thanked Musk for his “incredible generosity” and called the planned donation “exactly what was envisioned when we created TRUMP ACCOUNTS.” Michael Piwowar, executive director of Georgetown McDonough’s Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy, called Trump Accounts the “perfect vehicle” through which Musk could deliver SpaceX shares to recipients. “One of its great features, in addition to the initial capital of $1,000, is the ability of philanthropists to make philanthropic gifts to a class of individuals,” he said. The Treasury Department is automatically enrolling up to 60 million children in the Trump Accounts program. Piwowar added that with Musk’s donation, “American children will be immediately invested in the American dream.” U.S. citizens born between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2028 are eligible for a $1,000 seed donation from the government. Edited by Stephen Smith The Associated Press contributed to this report. More from CBS News Go deeper with The Free Press in:
