Photo: Collected
Billionaire Elon Musk has announced that he will give a share in ‘SpaceX’, his own space and artificial intelligence (AI) company, to every child in the United States.
He announced the decision in the face of growing scrutiny and criticism worldwide over the social impact of technology sector companies.
In a post yesterday, Monday, on X, the social media platform he owns, the world’s richest person wrote, ‘Next year I will give one share of SpaceX to every child in the United States. This is only an opening step.’
SpaceX, a company valued at 2 trillion US dollars, formally began trading on the stock market in June this year after completing the world’s largest initial public offering (IPO). At the close of the market last Friday, each of the company’s shares was priced at about 146 dollars.
According to the US Census Bureau, the number of children under the age of 18 in the United States is about 73 million. Taking SpaceX’s current share price, the total market value of this proposed share distribution by Musk would come to about 10.7 billion dollars.
Elon Musk has not, however, given any detailed explanation of exactly how this huge quantity of shares will be distributed among children and whether all children will be covered by it.
Musk’s statement came mainly after an announcement by the AI research company ‘Anthropic’. Last Sunday Anthropic said it would donate at least 5 per cent of its shares — currently worth about 48 billion dollars — to a public welfare fund that would help address the risk of people losing their jobs because of AI.
Reacting angrily to this on X, Musk wrote, ‘I am suggesting giving shares directly to the people instead of a fund…and that is exactly what I am going to do.’
This is not, however, the first initiative to bring young people into the US stock market. This month the US Treasury Department has begun the process of enrolling those under the age of 18 under a new savings and investment scheme named ‘Trump Accounts’.
Earlier, last July, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell and her husband had announced they would give SpaceX shares to two million children, giving priority to children from low-income families.
Elon Musk signed the Giving Pledge, a commitment to donate a large part of his wealth to public welfare, in 2012. The assets of the ‘Musk Foundation’, which he runs, exceeded 14 billion dollars by the end of 2024. According to an analysis by The New York Times, however, a large part of this fund has gone to organisations connected with Musk’s own business interests.
Musk has questioned the effectiveness of conventional charitable systems on more than one occasion. In a podcast last year he said, ‘It is very easy to donate money to make someone look good, but it is extremely difficult to donate in a way that actually benefits people.’
These announcements of huge sums of assistance by technology billionaires are coming at a time when criticism is intensifying worldwide over the harmful impact of artificial intelligence and the technology sector on society and the environment. With several recent documentaries and films highlighting irregularities in the technology sector, top technology executives including Musk are facing strong criticism on the international stage.
Background
According to a PBS NewsHour report of 19 October 2026, alongside speaking in the post about giving shares directly to the people, Musk had said, ‘This will be the first of many such initiatives’; he gave no details about how it would be implemented.
According to the account in the same report, Anthropic said the previous day that it would give 5 per cent of its own shares to a new fund named the ‘Anthropic Public Benefit Fund’; if the share price rises, the value of the fund could also rise.
The numbers
By PBS NewsHour’s count too, SpaceX shares closed last Friday at 146.03 dollars and, taking about 73 million children under the age of 18, the total value of the pledge comes to about 10.66 billion dollars — PBS NewsHour provided this information on 19 October 2026.
Compared with its highest price after the IPO, the price of SpaceX shares has now fallen by 35.3 per cent — PBS NewsHour provided this information on 19 October 2026.
Sources
Background source: PBS NewsHour, 19 October 2026
