By Hamza Faisal

Elon Musk wants to make every kid in America a SpaceX shareholder. In a post on X shortly before 4 a.m. ET on Monday, the SpaceX founder and chief executive wrote: "Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America. This will be the first of many."

If carried out, the pledge would rank among the largest individual stock giveaways ever announced. Axios estimates it at roughly $11 billion at current prices, while CNBC puts it at about $10.5 billion — either way, nearly double the record-breaking $6.25 billion Trump Accounts gift made by Dell founder Michael Dell, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

72 million shares at $146 each

The arithmetic is straightforward. The Census Bureau counts just over 72 million Americans under 18, and SpaceX closed Friday at $146.03 a share. One share per child works out to a little over $10.5 billion, Axios reported. Business Insider notes the giveaway would consume only about 1.5 percent of Musk's personal holding — a small dent in a very large position.

Musk is the largest holder of SpaceX stock. According to an August SEC filing, he owns about 4.8 billion shares directly, rising to 6.4 billion when unvested awards and options are included — a 48.4 percent beneficial stake. Because the shares would come from his own holding rather than a new issuance, there would be no dilution for existing SpaceX investors.

A reply to Anthropic's benefit fund

The announcement landed a day after Anthropic committed at least 5 percent of its shares to a new public benefit fund ahead of a potential stock market listing. The BBC reports that Musk responded to Anthropic's pledge by saying he recommended giving shares directly to the public — and that this was what he would be doing himself.

The timing also follows a rough week for tech stocks. Shares of Nvidia, Meta, Broadcom and Micron all slid sharply on Friday, and investors are increasingly questioning the sustainability of AI financing — while Musk is once again turning a social-media post into a market-moving headline.

The details that aren't there yet

What the pledge lacks is almost everything else. Musk did not define what counts as a "kid," set an age cutoff, or explain how the shares would be transferred — private-company stock cannot simply be mailed to a minor. Some reports have linked the idea to Trump Accounts, the child savings vehicles launched on July 4 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but those accounts are required to invest in index-tracking funds, and it is not yet clear how single-stock gifts would be handled.

It would not be the first such gift. In July, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell and her husband pledged one SpaceX share each to more than two million children, mostly aged 11 to 17 in lower-income areas — a pledge valued at roughly $325 million at the time, CNBC reported.

For now, the market is pricing a promise from a single post. SpaceX shares were up about 1 percent at $146 in premarket trading on Monday.

By Hamza Faisal