Elon Musk has promised to give every child in the United States a share of SpaceX stock next year, and the gift could be worth more than $10 billion.
“This will be the first of many,” the world’s richest man wrote to X on Monday.
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, there are approximately 73 million children under the age of 18 living in the United States.
At Friday’s closing price of $146.03, the pledge would be worth about $10.7 billion.
President Donald Trump thanked Musk on his Truth Social platform and claimed that the shares would be given to his children through the “Trump Account.” The Trump Account is a tax-friendly children’s investment account created under the Tax and Spend Act signed by Musk last year.
The pledge will be announced two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Musk is the largest known campaign donor, giving more than $276 million to Republican organizations since July.
Musk did not say which children would be eligible, when the shares would be delivered, or how they would be delivered.
So how does this perk work and who benefits?
Here’s what you need to know:
How much is SpaceX stock worth? How much will Musk donate?
SpaceX, the world’s seventh-largest company, began trading on the Nasdaq in June at an initial public offering price of $135 per share.
Its price is unstable. SpaceX stock has fallen 35.3% from its multi-day high after going public.
The stock is currently trading at approximately $146 per share. For every $1 movement in the stock price, the value of the gift changes by approximately $73 million.
Musk fully owns 4.8 billion shares of SpaceX, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in August.
Including unvested awards and stock options, he owns about 6.4 billion shares, or 48.4% of the company.
The transfer of 73 million shares would reduce his total ownership by about 1.5% and have little effect on his control of the company. Because SpaceX owns two classes of stock, his voting power, which currently stands at about 82 percent, would drop by just 0.1 percentage point, according to calculations by Bloomberg Opinion.
This is the largest single gift ever associated with Trump’s account.
How do stocks reach children?
Musk didn’t say that.
Trump said the stocks would be held in Trump’s account, and Musk thanked tech investor Brad Gerstner, who runs the account, “for helping make this possible.”
The White House says President Trump has opened nearly 70 million accounts, one for every child under 18 with a Social Security number. Investments held in a Trump account can be rolled up tax-deferred until withdrawn when the child turns 18. Alternatively, you can roll it up into a tax-friendly IRA (Adult Retirement Account) and continue your tax-friendly status.
Under Treasury regulations published on Sept. 30, donors can now gift individual company shares to their children through their accounts. Family members and friends who regularly contribute to their children’s Trump accounts are limited to investing in low-risk index funds.
Family members cannot refuse the shares on behalf of the child, and they generally cannot be sold for five years, or until the end of the year when the child turns 17.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Musk will not be able to sell or trade most of his SpaceX stock until June 2027.
Who will benefit?
The president’s name is on the account, and he is closely connected to the gift.
He thanked Musk on Truth Social, saying the pledge was “exactly what we envisioned when we founded TRUMP ACCOUNT.”
The White House presented the results as a signature outcome of the Trump tax law, noting that “every Democratic senator voted against this bill.”
This pledge also signifies national reconciliation. Musk and Trump clashed over Trump’s 2025 tax and spending bill, a rift that Trump later called a “little dispute.”
The children will get a free share, but the gift could also save Musk money.
Donors who donate appreciated stocks to charity can avoid capital gains taxes and can usually claim a deduction, US broadcaster CNBC reports.
As the founder of SpaceX, Musk paid very little for the stock, and selling $10.7 billion of it could result in a tax bill of up to about $2.5 billion.
Will McBride, chief economist at the Tax Foundation, told the broadcaster in May that this is “a common practice, especially for high-income taxpayers who would otherwise be paying higher rates.”
Ann Lipton, a law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Inc. that the millions of shareholders who cannot sell will also have an interest in SpaceX’s success and “minimizing its regulatory burden.”
For Mitchell Downey, an economist at Stockholm University’s Institute for International Economics who studies political influence in the United States, the more striking part of the pledge is what he calls the “horseshoe side,” the idea that right-wing and left-wing policies can meander and merge.
For decades, progressives have supported the concept of child development accounts, investment accounts for every newborn designed to reduce wealth inequality, he said. The idea worked with groups such as Democracy Collaborative, but struggled to gain support from the federal government. Now, as a result of Mr. Musk’s gift and Mr. Trump’s account, this idea may become more mainstream.
“I always felt like it might be out of reach,” Downey says. “But I don’t see how Mr. Musk’s proposal is possible without building this kind of infrastructure.”
Why is timing important?
The pledge was announced just two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections that will determine control of the House and Senate. All seats in the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate will be up for election.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 33%, according to a Washington Post-ABC News Ipsos poll, and many political observers predict that Republicans will lose seats to Democrats as a result.
Musk campaigned with Trump in 2024, spearheaded the president’s government efficiency plan to reduce the size of the federal workforce, and has made significant contributions to Republican candidates ahead of the midterm elections.
Is this legal? Why is it controversial?
Downey said he doesn’t think the pledge raises any legal concerns.
“Individuals are allowed to use their own money to support politicians,” he told Al Jazeera. “The law is only violated if it is not publicly reported or is part of an explicit and documented quid pro quo.”
But he said that while it’s not unique to Musk’s approach, it does raise ethical concerns.
Those concerns are related to “the outsized role that outside donors play in U.S. elections,” Downey said. In his view, these are just as true when someone spends a lot of money on TV ads for a candidate.
Has anyone done this before?
Downey said precedent is “difficult to assess.”
Musk is the richest person in modern history, so it’s perhaps no surprise that he’s “doing things that cost more money than other super-rich people have done,” he said.
He called the Gates Foundation’s spending over the past 30 years “a different kind of ‘gift to the public.'” The difference, he said, is that the Gates Foundation focuses its money on health crises in countries in Africa and South Asia, rather than on U.S. voters.
Last year, Gates pledged that “over the next 20 years, virtually all of my wealth, through the Gates Foundation, will be donated to causes that save and improve lives around the world.”
