Musk pledges to give a share of his SpaceX company to 'every kid in
America'
[October 20, 2026] By
MICHELLE CHAPMAN
Elon Musk on Monday pledged to give one share of his company SpaceX to
“every kid in America” next year.
The offer arrived a day after artificial intelligence company Anthropic
announced in a social media post that it will commit 5% of its shares to
a new “public benefit” fund.
In a response to that Sunday post, Musk wrote, “I recommend giving the
shares directly to the public.”
Shares of SpaceX, which will report its quarterly earnings on Tuesday,
closed at $146.03 on Friday.
With approximately 73 million children under the age of 18 in the United
States, that would put the value of Musk's pledge at about $10.66
billion.
Anthropic said Sunday that the shares it is committing will go to the
Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a new entity within the company. The
fund's worth will potentially increase as the shares grow in value.
Musk did not provide further details on how his share pledge will be
carried out, but did add in his post that “This will be the first of
many.”
The announcements by Musk and Anthropic arrive as Americans grow
increasingly wary of AI. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC
Center for Public Affairs Research finds that most Americans, 64%, think
AI is developing “too fast,” while 27% say its development has been
“about right” and only 8% say it’s moving “too slow.”
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SpaceXAI’s Musk and other
prominent industry leaders said last month that AI’s development needs
to slow down. The consensus came after an Anthropic researcher resigned
with a dire warning about the threats the technology poses to humanity.
But obstacles including domestic and global competition, profit
motivations and pushback from President Donald Trump all stand in the
way of a coordinated effort to pace AI’s development.
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Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump speaks during an event
at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP
Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
 Musk has quietly become the biggest
known donor in this year’s midterm elections, doling out more than
$276 million since July to try to save Republican majorities in
Congress.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and the company’s five other cofounders
established Anthropic as a public benefit corporation, a designation
that for-profit companies select to balance financial goals and
social impact.
Anthropic is planning a massive initial public offering as soon as
November. In June the company said that it had submitted a
confidential filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
for its proposed IPO.
That same month, Musk's SpaceX made its Wall Street debut as a
publicly traded company and made Musk the world's first trillionaire.
Shares of SpaceX are down 35.3% since peaking days after that
initial public offering, however, meaning Musk is a billionaire.
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