Elon Musk, Anthropic pledge to give away billions of dollars in shares
Elon Musk, Anthropic pledge to give away billions of dollars in shares
Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, said today that he plans to give one share of the spaceflight company to every child in America.
“This will be the first of many,” Musk wrote in a short post on X announcing the plan today. His announcement came a few hours after Anthropic PBC pledged to give at least 5% of its ownership shares to a fund that supports public benefits.
There were 72 million children in the United States as of last July. This suggests that Musk plans to give away 72 million SpaceX shares. At the company's most recent closing share price, those shares would be worth $10.5 billion.
Musk did not explain how he plans to distribute the shares. However, he said in an X post replying to Anthropic's donation announcement that he plans to give “shares directly to the public.” In another post, Musk thanked technology investor Brad Gerstner for helping make the plan possible. Gerstner played a major role in creating Trump Accounts, investment accounts that the White House opened for U.S. children earlier this year.
In July, SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell promised to give more than $320 million worth of her SpaceX shares to the Trump Accounts program.
Musk's charitable work has faced questions in recent months. He runs a charitable foundation that held more than $14 billion in assets as of December. However, it has reportedly failed to meet minimum donation requirements over the past four years. Reports also say that the money it did give went to nonprofit groups that support Musk and his companies.
Musk promised to donate $1 billion to OpenAI Group PBC shortly after the company launched in 2015. He donated only $38 million and later proposed taking majority control of the artificial intelligence company, which was then a traditional nonprofit. OpenAI changed its organizational structure a few years later to support its efforts to operate as a commercial business.
Anthropic, the main competitor to the company behind ChatGPT, announced its own major charitable plan shortly before Musk made his announcement. Anthropic plans to give 5% of its ownership shares to a new public benefit fund. It also plans to add another 2% each time its company value rises by 50% “above a set baseline.”
The Anthropic Public Benefit Fund will be part of Anthropic rather than a separate nonprofit organization. The company said one of the fund's main goals will be to address how AI affects jobs and the labor market. Earlier this year, Anthropic committed $200 million to outside research projects focused on this issue.
The shares set aside for the fund will be in addition to the large amount of company stock that Anthropic employees have promised to donate. Together, these two plans will dedicate about 20% of Anthropic's shares to charitable causes. Those shares could be worth $400 billion if the company reaches the $2 trillion valuation it reportedly hopes to achieve in its upcoming public offering.
