Musk pledges 1 SpaceX share for every child in America

Axios · 10/19/2026, 9:43:10 AM

Elon Musk said Monday he'd give one of his shares in SpaceX to every "kid" in America next year. Why it matters: It'd be a roughly $11 billion giveaway at current stock prices, nearly double Michael Dell's record-breaking Trump accounts gift. What they're saying: " Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America. This will be the first of many," Musk said in a post to X just before 4 a.m. ET Monday. He did not specify if "kid" meant all minors under 18 or some other status, nor did he elaborate on what "first of many" meant. He also did not reply to X accounts asking if he meant all kids present in the U.S., or just citizens. By the numbers: Per the Census Bureau, there are just over 72 million people under 18 in the U.S. If each got one SpaceX share, at Friday's closing price of $146.03, that'd be a market value of a little over $10.5 billion. Musk owns billions of SpaceX shares, so the giveaway would make only a small dent in his holdings. Zoom in: Musk's pledge isn't the first from SpaceX. In July the company's COO Gwynne Shotwell said she'd gift a share of the stock to each of 2 million Trump accounts, a gift now worth nearly $300 million. Zoom out: Musk's announcement comes one day after Anthropic said it was setting up a new public benefit fund with 5% of the company's equity, an entity potentially worth $100 billion or more. Musk responded to Anthropic's news by saying "I recommend giving the shares directly to the public," later adding "This is what I will be doing." Editor's note: This story has been updated with background details.