Elon Musk's latest promise is a shot at besting Anthropic

On Monday, Elon Musk announced on X that next year he would give every child in America one share of SpaceX stock.

The announcement received more than 33 million views in one day. Thousands of people praised the world's richest man for his planned act of generosity. Even the White House praised Musk, with President Donald Trump thanking him for his “incredible generosity.” This happened despite the difficult and often troubled relationship between the two men since Trump returned to the White House. In his original post, Musk said his donations would be “the first of many.”

Since the announcement, Musk has not explained clearly how he plans to keep his promise. The SpaceX founder and CEO did not discuss it in his opening remarks during the company's live-streamed third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday. During the call, the company reported that its revenue had risen by 161% compared with the third quarter of last year. Musk also did not explain whether his promise to give shares to “every kid in America” included children who are not U.S. citizens.

On Monday, Musk wrote vaguely on X that the shares might be given out through the new “Trump Accounts” program. This program gives every U.S. citizen under 18 an investment account to help them start investing early. CNBC reported on Tuesday that using this program might limit what people could do with their shares. For example, they might not be free to sell them if the company loses value, under the program's rules.

But past events show that Musk is not always a reliable guide to what will happen.

A Wired review of Musk's promises over the past 20 years found many examples of plans that did not happen as he described. In 2018, Musk suggested that Tesla drivers would be able to call their cars from anywhere in the country and that the cars would be able to charge themselves. Traffic would also have been almost completely eliminated by then. The year before, Musk had said his Boring Company would build a huge network of underground tunnels at a rate of one mile of track per week. In Musk's vision, even people who did not own cars would benefit: by 2020, one million Tesla robotaxis were supposed to be driving on U.S. streets.

But Tesla's cars do not charge themselves, and Musk's tunnel company has built only one tunnel tube in Las Vegas. Tesla only began building its robotaxi vehicles in April.

If Musk's latest promise to share his wealth with young people in America is just another idea he posted online before working out the details, his reason for making it may be clear. Musk announced the planned donation just one day after his rival Anthropic announced a new “Public Benefit Fund.” According to Anthropic, the company plans to give 5% of its shares to the fund. It will increase the amount donated each time the company's value rises by 50%.

Musk quickly criticized Anthropic's plan. In a reply to the company's post on X, he said he would recommend giving shares “directly to the public” instead. Four hours later, he had decided what he would do.

“This is what I will be doing,” Musk wrote in response to his own suggestion about Anthropic.

Contact tech reporter Matthew Brown at [email protected] or matthewbrownsfgate.11 on Signal.