Elon Musk said on Monday that he will give every child in the United States one of his SpaceX shares next year. "This will be the first of many," the SpaceX chief executive wrote on X, without saying how the giveaway would work.

Musk owns about 4.8 billion SpaceX shares, according to an August filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That figure rises to 6.4 billion once unvested awards and stock options are counted, a 48.4% beneficial stake in the company.

Census data recorded 72 million children under 18 in the United States as of 1 July 2025. Against SpaceX's closing share price of $146.03 on Friday, handing one share to each of them would come to roughly $10.5 billion.

The pledge followed Anthropic's disclosure that it plans to commit 5% of its shares to a new public benefit fund, with the stake potentially rising as the company's valuation grows. Replying to an Anthropic post about the fund on Sunday, Musk wrote, "I recommend giving the shares directly to the public," and said that was what he would be doing.

Subject to shareholder approval, Anthropic's fund would immediately commit 5% of its shares, with the board able to add a further 2% for every 50% rise in the company's value above a baseline that has yet to be disclosed. The company said the fund could 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 the way artificial intelligence disrupts and displaces jobs.