Oct 20,2026: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said Monday that he’ll give every child in the U.S. one of his shares in the company next year.
Musk currently owns about 4.8 billion SpaceX shares, according to an August SEC filing. That figure rises to 6.4 billion when taking into account unvested awards and stock options, representing a 48.4% beneficial stake in the company.
There were 72 million children under 18 in the U.S. as of July 1, 2025, according to official census data.
That would amount to the CEO giving away about $10.5 billion worth of shares, taking into account SpaceX’s closing stock price of $146.03 as of Friday.
Musk’s financial giving has been in the news in recent weeks primarily for his political contributions.
The Tesla CEO has spent more than $276 million in donations to Republican groups since July, making him the biggest known donor of the 2026 midterm election.
When it comes to fulfilling his philanthropic promises, Musk has a spotty track record.
For example, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO contributed about $38 million to OpenAI, which he co-founded as a nonprofit research lab, between 2016 and 2020. But he had promised to contribute up to $1 billion, and cut off donations to the organization amid a battle with cofounders for control of the company.
In 2021, Musk said he would donate $6 billion to the United Nations World Food Program if it could show him a plan for how they’d use the money to “solve world hunger.” While the WFP posted a plan, Musk did not donate.
Musk’s foundation has also repeatedly fallen shy of making the minimum donations it’s required to by law, and as The New York Times previously reported, its donations go to charities that closely benefit Musk and his companies directly.
Musk’s post came just after Anthropic revealed plans to commit 5% of its shares to a new public benefit fund, with the stake potentially increasing as the company’s valuation grows.
In response to an Anthropic post on X about the fund on Sunday, Musk replied, “I recommend giving the shares directly to the public,” and added that’s what he’d be doing.
Subject to shareholder approval, Anthropic’s fund would immediately commit 5% of Anthropic’s shares, with the board adding, at its discretion, an additional 2% for every 50% increase in the company’s value above a set baseline that has yet to be disclosed.
The fund may be used to “explore large donations,” including to traditional nonprofits or as direct distributions for specific populations, or for “bolder approaches” to study and address AI’s disruption and displacement of jobs, the company said.
