Elon Musk says he will give a SpaceX share to every kid in America Elon Musk said he will give one SpaceX share to every child in America next year, responding to Anthropic's pledge to commit five per cent of its shares to a Public Benefit Fund. Elon Musk has said he will give every child in America a stake in SpaceX, his $2 trillion aerospace and artificial intelligence company. Musk made the pledge on X on Monday, as tech firms face intensifying scrutiny over their impact on society. The announcement came in response to Anthropic's plan to donate a slice of its own equity to social causes. Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America, Musk wrote on X. This will be the first of many. The proposal was thin on detail. It is not clear how shares would be distributed to tens of millions of American children, or whether all of them would even be eligible.SpaceX Public Trading And Potential Giveaway WorthSpaceX only began trading publicly in June, and it had the biggest initial public offering in history. Its shares were trading for about $146 when the market closed on Friday. According to the United States Census Bureau, there are roughly 73 million people under the age of 18. At SpaceX's current share price, Musk's potential giveaway would be worth about US$10.7 billion.Offering young people a stake in the U.S. stock market is not a new idea. This month, the Treasury Department automatically signed up millions of under-18s to Trump Accounts, a new federal savings and investment vehicle. Children born between the start of 2025 and the end of 2028 are eligible for a one-off $1,000 government contribution under that program. Musk's offer came in response to Anthropic's announcement on Sunday.The AI company said it will commit at least five per cent of its shares to a Public Benefit Fund. That stake is worth US$48 billion at the private company's latest valuation. The fund will donate money to social causes, Anthropic wrote on its website. The fund could make large donations to non-profit organizations or direct distributions to specific populations, the company said.Anthropic Shares And Musk Direct Giveaway PlanIt added that the money could help mitigate the impact of artificial intelligence on people's jobs. Musk retorted on X: I recommend giving the shares directly to the public. This is what I will be doing. Both offers come as AI companies face intense backlash over the safety of their products.Anthropic itself recently warned of the existential risk to humanity posed by the technology. Critics also point to the potential for AI to push humans out of their jobs en masse. The industry's gargantuan data center build-out has raised further social and environmental concerns. Tech titans more broadly are catching heat.New movies like The Social Reckoning, about a Facebook employee blowing the whistle on unsafe company practices, are helping to remind audiences of the long-running recklessness of some in Big Tech. The documentary You Can See Everything, following blood testing start-up founder and convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, is now a hit in theaters too. It also keeps those themes in the public eye. Musk himself is the subject of the new documentary Musk, charting his life and career.It is unsparing in its criticism of some of his business practices and controversial foray into politics.