Elon Musk Pledges $10.5B in SpaceX Shares to US Children After Anthropic Equity Fund Move

Elon Musk pledged on Monday to give one of his SpaceX shares to every child in the United States next year, a commitment worth about $10.5B across roughly 72M children at SpaceX's share price of roughly $147. Musk's promise represents just over 1% of the 6.42B SpaceX shares he held as of June 30 per an SEC filing, and likely utilizes new Treasury Department rules allowing stock donations into tax-advantaged Trump Accounts for children where shares are generally held for five years. The move came less than a day after Anthropic announced Sunday it will commit 5% of its shares—worth about $100B on paper as it prepares for a potential IPO as soon as November at a reported valuation of around $2T—to a new Public Benefit Fund, subject to stockholder approval. Anthropic structured its fund as a wholly owned LLC rather than a traditional nonprofit and says roughly 20% of its stock will go to public causes once co-founder pledges to donate 80% of their equity and employee matching programs are included, with the board able to add 2% more shares each time valuation rises 50% above an undisclosed baseline. Two days before announcing the fund, Anthropic pitched lawmakers a draft AI safety bill that would let the government block models through the Commerce Department and a federal court order if they pose a foreseeable, imminent risk of killing or seriously injuring more than 50 people or causing over $1B in damage. "Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America. This will be the first of many." — Elon Musk