TEXAS: Elon Musk has vowed to distribute a share of SpaceX to each child in the United States, a multibillion-dollar pledge that adds to a string of sizeable donations from the tech industry for the benefit of the American public.
“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America,” the company’s chief executive officer wrote Monday on X, the social media platform he owns.
“This will be the first of many.”
While Musk didn’t specify how he intends to make such a donation, he has agreed in principle to distribute the stock through the Trump Accounts initiative, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Musk has had ongoing discussions about making such a contribution and agreed to proceed after the White House announced the creation of tens of millions of individual accounts, said the person, who wasn’t authorised to speak publicly.
There are about 72 million children in the United States, according to estimates from the US Census Bureau, which would make the donation worth about US$10.7bil at the current share price.
Musk didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the details of his plan.
“A big thank you to our legendary friend, Elon Musk, for his incredible generosity,” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social.
The planned donation adds another high-profile name to the roster of Trump Accounts backers, after billionaires including Michael and Susan Dell and Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio pledged funds.
The initiative, created under the tax and spending bill signed last year by Trump, provides US$1,000 to American children born between 2025 and 2028.
Musk is by far the world’s richest person with a net worth of more than US$900bil, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His SpaceX shares account for the vast majority of that wealth, at about US$700bil, with the rest coming from Tesla Inc, Boring Co and Neuralink.
While the billionaire has a history of floating ideas that don’t materialise or suggesting plans he later explains away as jokes, Musk pinned his latest post about SpaceX shares to the top of his X page.
Trump said in July that he expected Musk to contribute to the Trump Accounts programme.
Around the same time, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said that she and her husband had gifted SpaceX stock to a Trump Account for more than two million children in the United States. — Bloomberg
