Elon Musk Vows To Give a SpaceX Share To 'Every Kid In America' (cnn.com) 124
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Elon Musk has said he will give every child in America a stake in SpaceX, his $2 trillion aerospace and artificial intelligence company, as tech firms face intensifying scrutiny over their impact on society. "Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America," he wrote on X on Monday. "This will be the first of many."
SpaceX only began trading publicly in June (and after the biggest initial public offering in history). The company's shares were trading for about $146 when the market closed on Friday. Musk's proposal was thin on detail. It is not clear how those shares would be distributed to the tens of millions of American children or whether all of them would even be eligible. According to the United States Census Bureau, there are roughly 73 million people under the age of 18, making Musk's potential giveaway worth about $10.7 billion at SpaceX's current share price. The move came in response to Anthropic's announcement on Sunday that it will commit at least 5% of its shares to a "Public Benefit Fund" that will donate money to social causes. "I recommend giving the shares directly to the public," Musk said in a reply to Anthropic's announcement. "This is what I will be doing."
SpaceX only began trading publicly in June (and after the biggest initial public offering in history). The company's shares were trading for about $146 when the market closed on Friday. Musk's proposal was thin on detail. It is not clear how those shares would be distributed to the tens of millions of American children or whether all of them would even be eligible. According to the United States Census Bureau, there are roughly 73 million people under the age of 18, making Musk's potential giveaway worth about $10.7 billion at SpaceX's current share price. The move came in response to Anthropic's announcement on Sunday that it will commit at least 5% of its shares to a "Public Benefit Fund" that will donate money to social causes. "I recommend giving the shares directly to the public," Musk said in a reply to Anthropic's announcement. "This is what I will be doing."
Good grief (Score:4, Insightful)
Musk really can't stand it when the spotlight isn't on him, can he?
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nah he is just avoiding alimony
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Ted Cruz phone-banked for the man who called his wife ugly. The only thing broke is his spine.
Musk time (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the average promise vs. reality time frame of anything Musk does, those shares might go to the kids' kids.
Re:Musk time [in Delaware?] (Score:1, Offtopic)
I have some funny stories about single shares, but since I can't write jokes, I'll just summarize the results. Really hard to sell single shares, so they eventually wind up in escrow in Delaware. At this point it seems pretty clear they are just waiting for me to die and then the state gets to keep them. Just a few shares here and there. Not a big deal in my case, though I'm sure many cases are larger, but multiplied by large numbers and I conclude the state must be making out like a bandit.
Anyone around he
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But it was in Delaware before that and my next guess is that it will go back as soon as it becomes less politically convenient. Perhaps RSN? Just a matter of expertise in writing favorable laws for corporations and the reality that Texas has never been long on expertise. There should be a joke about it...
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Pretty sure I tried it at least one time in the past, but didn't get any satisfaction or money back. At various times via various mechanisms the shares have come out of escrow status, and then they go back... Another funny story about how my Japanese brokerage firm went from #3 to bankrupt a long time ago. But I think the fundamental problem is that the stock market game is rigged in favor of big investors and small investors are just treated as collateral damage.
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and he'll be sure to keep all the Class B shares for himself, because he doesn't believe in a "lord and peasants" structure /sarc
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That's easier to do (Score:5, Insightful)
Before you go public, as you control all the shares. What's SpaceX going to do? You think Elmo is going to give up the shares, or is he going to issue 73 million more and dilute the price?
Re:That's easier to do (Score:5, Insightful)
Its a little tricky too, as children generally don't have suitable investment accounts that can hold publicly traded shares. I'm doubtful they even legally can open those accounts.
So what are they going to do, issue a gazillion single paper share certificates? What a shitshow that would be, the fees and shipping alone around dealing with that for a single share would be nuts, not to mention the hassle of redeeming them, and the untold numbers that would be misplaced or destroyed. And I'm still not sure children can own them, or sign the agreements required to get them.
What else could the do? Create beneficial trusts for every child? Whose going to administer that? and again the fees and management expenses around it would be nuts all for a $150 space-x share?
It might be reasonable for him to set a bunch aside, and as children reach adulthood, let them claim them at that point.
If the idea is that the kid can't sell it or whatever until they're an adult anyway, its probably fine. It'll be income maybe when they receive it, so that could work out badly for some kids though, if they have to sell it to cover the taxes on it, because they don't have a job yet. Especially if its appreciated to a couple thousand or something. (How are splits etc handled, do they get one or more? Or worse... reverse splits on a single share?)
Re:That's easier to do (Score:4, Informative)
Its a little tricky too, as children generally don't have suitable investment accounts that can hold publicly traded shares. I'm doubtful they even legally can open those accounts.
Since DOGE (allegedly) stole everyone's SSI information, he probably has enough PII to open the accounts for them. ;-)
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Its a little tricky too, as children generally don't have suitable investment accounts that can hold publicly traded shares. I'm doubtful they even legally can open those accounts.
I am guessing you and everyone else here forgot about: https://trumpaccounts.gov/ [trumpaccounts.gov]
Somehow or another, that is claimed to be a genuine government website. I feel sick to my stomach.
Re:That's easier to do (Score:4, Informative)
All he does is say the parent has to open an UTMA account with X Financial to receive the share. It's not really a free share. It's a promo bonus for opening an account with him for your kid.
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Ah, I had missed Trump accounts because they originally couldn't hold individual stocks according to how congress defined them in the legislation. I was not aware Trump and co were trying to do an end-run around the legislation by arguing that the law doesn't prohibit corporations from donating individual shares.
However, that's a pretty new development, is controversial, and its unclear how it would really work, especially in tandem with the other rules.
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Do you believe he will? Perhaps in his will...which would, of course, be contested.
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Before you go public, as you control all the shares. What's SpaceX going to do? You think Elmo is going to give up the shares, or is he going to issue 73 million more and dilute the price?
And if they're voting shares, that's going to be a huge headache with 73 million 1-share voters. Also for shareholder meetings; pretty sure they won't have the parking for that. :-)
Poll numbers (Score:5, Funny)
Wow the poll numbers must be pretty bad if he's resorting to socialism.
Re:Poll numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
It's weapons-grade bullshit.
Oh, he's going to eat the expense of sending out an 8-digit number of proxy votes now? Every child in America (and their parents as legal guardians) now get a shareholder vote?
This is not happening the same way Trump's voter bribery checks aren't happening.
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1 share is very hard to sell.
Neither one of these plans is anything but a publicity stunt and a tax dodge. Musk's stupid idea doesn't work well as a tax dodge though. How does one distribute 1 share to tens of millions of kids who don't have bank accounts much less brokerage accounts? Is he going to mail them out as paper shares, to be stored in a photo album for the next 20 years?
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Not it isn't. You can buy and sell shares in 1 share increments. It's not hard to do it.
It can take a little bit of time if you
Re: Poll numbers (Score:2)
It's also been done in large volume before. TMobile did this a few years ago, 10 million or so recipients.
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1 share is very hard to sell.
Selling 1 share is very much the easiest quantity to sell. Selling a fraction of a share is difficult. Selling shares worth 100s of thousands of dollars is difficult. But selling 1 share is as easy as pressing a button.
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Trump Accounts [trumpaccounts.gov] are retirement plans for kids, and Elon could donate directly to those.
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It's weapons-grade bullshit.
Oh, he's going to eat the expense of sending out an 8-digit number of proxy votes now? Every child in America (and their parents as legal guardians) now get a shareholder vote?
They will come with an auto-voting clause (like the one being implemented at the upcoming Tesla shareholder meeting): The shares are to be automatically counted as siding with the board in all shareholder votes, unless you log in and decline on an individual issue.
All of the votes will still go how Musk wants them to go.
FYI, Tesla is merging with SpaceX to give Musk more control of the combined company, and to trigger early (and in full) awards of his salary contract. This 73 million shares give away will
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what's wrong with you people? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Musk ASSAULTED the entire population of the USA with his DOGE scam that he used to steal the private data of citizens. You may not care that he violated the security of almost every person in the USA, but anyone who isn't a blind follower of that overgrown Oompa Loompa in the White House HATES Musk at this point.
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Musk ASSAULTED the entire population of the USA with his DOGE scam that he used to steal the private data of citizens. You may not care that he violated the security of almost every person in the USA, but anyone who isn't a blind follower of that overgrown Oompa Loompa in the White House HATES Musk at this point.
Not to mention was directly responsible for a few million deaths due to gutting USAID [harvard.edu]. (Article says hundreds of thousands but was published last year.)
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When the OP said "get some perspective" he did not mean "get the perspective of a spotty, overweight Gender Studies student who hates men, white people, the USA, meat eaters, car drivers and intolerance".
Who told you to get the perspective of an unfuckable dipshit?
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Ah yes, Ad Hominem, for when you'd rather act like a prick than admit you don't a valid argument.
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What did he mean? Perspective on his personal investments?
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But because its Musk you have to find a reason to call it bad.
Humans with brains and hearts don't have to look for a reason, we have many reasons already. Get fucked, poser.
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Re:what's wrong with you people? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the guy who installed an unsecured Starlink terminal on top of the White House [mashable.com], then uploaded the entire Social Security database to an unsecured cloud environment [mashable.com] somewhere in the world.
We have the perspective. Do you?
Re: what's wrong with you people? (Score:1)
His perspective is of Musk's pubes about an inch from his face.
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All of it? You people literally freaked out and stormed the White House when you lost the first time. Corruption was last polled as 88% of American voter's concerns. God knows what you're going to do next time because a blue tsunami is literally on it's way.
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a blue tsunami is literally on it's way.
Don't be complacent about it. There are a lot of headlines about how people feel about individual issues (hint: very unhappy), but -overall Trump has an 80% approval rating among Republicans- That may translate to a lot of Republican votes in the upcoming elections.
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Is it wrong to feel resent towards an obvious attempt to overthrow the US democratic process? If so then I don't know what to tell you. Try introspection?
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I don't think a grant of one share of a specific stock will be a particularly educational event. I think generally in school a teach will, at some point, do a more educational exercise where students are actually doing mock trading and, critically, trying to evaluate different companies and make predictions on where things will go.
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Same reason no (rational) person will sign up for Sam Altman's crypto / retinal scan ...scam. These guys are not trustworthy, particularly so for the 'plebs' like us. I wouldn't give my kid's SSN to Musk for $100. Probably a scam, or likely something that it will be narrowed or have strings attached to make it far less meaningful if not down right pointless.
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The more reasonable reaction is to doubt that he will do as he says. I doubt that he'll do it, even with strings attached. If he actually does it (or legally commits to doing it), that's the time to start looking for the trap.
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This will inspire many children to learn about government civics and probably other patriotic topics. Its good for everyone, including the Wehrmacht. But because its Hitler you have to find a reason to call it bad. Get some perspective.
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You're such a loser, a fat old American getting rage-baited on Twitter by whatever propaganda it feeds you, just turning whatever grey matter is left into pudding. I do love how you're just the easiest mark for Russia and China to manipulate.
If France needs to install their own Trump to learn the same lesson Americans are, so be it, I actually am pro-American and we have our own pile of shit to clean up thanks to you.
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"This will inspire many children to learn about stocks ..."
It will not, but it wouldn't be valuable either.
"But because it's Musk you have to find a reason to call it bad. Get some perspective."
Again, no, it's bad because it's bad, it's not surprising because it's Musk. It's also not surprising that you defend it because it's Musk. Get some perspective.
Nothing wrong with me (Score:3)
You should have learned this sometime between the 5th and 6th grades or whatever the equivalent is in your country. Take a moment and make a phone call to whoever didn't teach you that and yell at them for not teaching you how to defend yourself from charlatans and crooks. Whoever it is they deserve it.
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But because its Musk you have to find a reason to call it bad. Get some perspective.
Nope. When it was Sam Altman doing the whole "You're probably not going to have a job thanks to the tech my company is developing, so here's a pittance as a way of saying oops, my bad." thing, I felt the same way.
Hey kid, I flooded your bedroom but here's a free inflatable pool float you can sit in. We're good now, right?
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In high school, I had a finance class where we learned how to trade stocks -- without actually doing it for real.
Yes, it is actually possible to be inspired and learn without all the stupid corporate stunts and PR bullshit.
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One can call out the bad while equally reflecting the good. There's nothing wrong with anyone, other than those people who pick a side in an absolutionist way.
Are you also in favour of burning every child's hand because in doing to they learn about hot things? By the way I learned about socks and financial topics at school. You don't learn about jack shit when someone deposits something into your account.
Well actually, you may be partially right. Quite a lot of kids are going get their financial fingers met
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Three takeaways (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Does anyone really think this will happen? I would put as much faith in this as I do Trump's $5000 checks in the GOP wins the midterms.
2) Does anyone really think he is going to give away his personal shares? Most likely, if it happens, they would issue 73 millions additional shares (or less as he will find some way to send them to only certain people), thus devalueing not only these new shares, but all the shares.
3) Even if he did give his own shares, that is still a time amount of his wealth. Does anyone really think he would ever even notice this change in wealth? This just shows how incredibly out of touch the uber rich are with regular people. This is about 1% of his net worth. He could give away 50% and it would never be noticed. But because it is a big number, people think this is rich people doing good when it is them doing the minimum for good press.
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3) He could give away 50% and it would never be noticed.
It absolutely would be noticed, because he wouldn't have a controlling stake in his own company. The board could Steve Jobs him out of his own company if they wanted to.
Re: Three takeaways (Score:2)
Oh sure it'll happen (Score:2)
It's all just a scam to steal our retirements. So given that when the scam is done and they h
Much easier solution (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sounds like a logistical headache (Score:2)
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Not to worry, recall that Musk *also* has ambitions of X being a finance company, so voila, every child can have an 'X brokerage account' waiting for them with a share in it. Now he gets every child defaulting to his network, no problem.
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This. Musk isn't doing anything out of the goodness of his heart. It's a way to try to get people into his financial ecosystem. I got a much bigger cash bonus for signing up for my [major bank] brokerage account.
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No, each kid needs to get an X ("The Everything App") account.
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Great PR! (Score:5, Informative)
This is like Trump promising $5K if republicans win the midterms. It's just a PR stunt.
Imagine trying to reason out the tax implications of something like this. The privacy implications. Everything.
Elon: "I really wanted to, but lawyers wouldn't let me!"
No way to see that coming.
Re:Great PR! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's actually not that complicated. This is essentially a brokerage account-opening bonus- which the major banks have done in various capacities for over a decade. Anybody can sign their kids up for their "free" share, but in exchange for $150 worth of stock, he gets all of the kid's information and makes X financial the default brokerage platform for them once they become of age (after all, they already have an account).
How convenient (Score:3, Insightful)
He got all their names and addresses when they looted the SSA database.
He's stealing your 401k (Score:2, Troll)
This is a distraction from the largest heist in human history
You can mod me down (Score:2)
As Kim WIlde once said.. (Score:1)
So give me my fucking share, Muskyboy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80TfG7C9azA&list=RD80TfG7C9azA
Remind me (Score:2)
such an attention wh0re (Score:1)
SpaceX must be worthless (Score:3)
Cause if it was profitable, he would keep the shares.
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Not for nothing, but this is the unlock schedule. There will be twice the number of shares tradeable in 2027 as there are now.
October 9 328.4 million shares (7%)
October 24, 328.4 million shares (7%)
November up to 1.3 billion shares (28%)
Dec.8, 2026: 797.6 million shares
2027: Elon Musk’s 6.42 billion shares unlock in stages, with Musk’s block fully tradable on June 12, 2027
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When the AI and other bubbles pop....there is going to be a LOT of hurt, particularly in the grossly over priced share stocks, and for those who are over leveraged
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AKA "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
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Re: SpaceX must be worthless (Score:2)
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"Investment advisors don't want you to know this one simple trick..."
One share / millions of kids (Score:4, Funny)
"Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America," he wrote on X on Monday.
So that's ONE share divided by millions of kids. Cool.
By any chance, does the kid have to create an account, where you store a bunch of his personal data, tied to his bank account? Gonna let your AI play with all that?
am I the a***ole? (Score:2)
Why not tax the 1% and give kids free college and vocational training?
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And what about the IRS? (Score:2)
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New programme... (Score:2)
His new distribution programme is called "Private Equity Distribution Of Lasting Fortune".
That's right folks, your kids will all get PEDOLF checks from Elon.
Corruption of a minor is illegal in my state. (Score:2)
When the melons a genius bubble pops (Score:2)
How is he going to determine who is a white kid? (Score:2)
I mean he is a nazi right? So he will not want to give shares to what he thinks are bad races? So how is he going to determine which kid is white?
Playground power dynamics (Score:2)
Bullies of old: "Gimmie your lunch money!"
Bullies in the new era: "Gimmie your SpaceX share."
This is pathetic. (Score:2, Insightful)
Has partisanship and sideline-cynicism completely taken over your lives? It's hard to watch you guys doing this to yourselves every day.
fake news (Score:2)
"Every child in America."
Actually, from what I read the plan is to put the stock into the new "Trump accounts," and those accounts require the child to be a US citizen.
Elon Musk == Wish.com Arthur Jensen (Score:2)
-- Arthur Jensen, Network [imdb.com] (destroying his golden goose)
Further viewing. [youtu.be]