Musk Pledges $10 Billion in SpaceX Stock to American Children Ahead of Midterms

Elon Musk has pledged to give one SpaceX share to every child in the United States over the coming year, a gift estimated to be worth more than $10 billion. The announcement came just two weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, at a time when Musk is the Republican Party's biggest political donor.

According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, about 73 million children under 18 live in the country. At Friday's closing price of $146.03 a share, the total value of the pledge comes to roughly $10.7 billion.

Share price and the scale of the pledge

SpaceX, the world's seventh-largest company, began trading on the Nasdaq in June with an initial public offering priced at $135 a share. The stock has been volatile, falling 35.3% from its peak in the days after listing. Every $1 move in the share price shifts the value of the gift by about $73 million.

According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in August, Musk directly owns 4.8 billion SpaceX shares. Including unvested shares and options, his stake rises to about 6.4 billion shares, or 48.4% of the company. Donating 73 million shares would cut his direct holding by about 1.5%, with almost no effect on his control of the company, since his voting power of roughly 82% would fall by just 0.1 percentage point.

How the shares would reach children

Musk has not said which children will qualify, or when and how the shares will be handed out. President Donald Trump said the shares will be held in "Trump Accounts" — tax-free investment accounts for children created under the tax and spending law he signed last year. Musk thanked tech investor Brad Gerstner, who championed the account model, for "helping make it happen."

According to the White House, nearly 70 million Trump Accounts have been opened, corresponding to every child under 18 with a Social Security number. Investments in the accounts are tax-deferred until the child withdraws the money at 18, or the funds can be rolled into an IRA and keep their tax-advantaged status. Under Treasury rules published on September 30, sponsors may donate corporate stock to children through the accounts, while family and friends may only invest in low-risk index funds.

Families cannot decline the shares on a child's behalf, and the stock generally cannot be sold for five years, or until the end of the year the child turns 17 if that comes sooner. According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk cannot sell or trade most of his SpaceX shares until June 2027.

Who really benefits?

The accounts bear the president's name, and Trump has tied himself closely to the gift. He thanked Musk on Truth Social, calling the pledge "exactly what we envisioned when we created TRUMP ACCOUNTS." The White House is promoting the accounts as a key achievement of the tax law, stressing that "every Democrat voted against" the legislation.

The pledge also marks a public reconciliation. Musk and Trump fell out in 2025 over Trump's tax and spending bill — a rift Trump later described as a "little dispute."

Children receive the shares for free, but the gift may also save Musk money. According to CNBC, donors who give appreciated stock to charity avoid capital gains tax and can usually claim a deduction. As SpaceX's founder, Musk paid very little for his shares, and selling $10.7 billion of stock could carry a tax bill of roughly $2.5 billion. Will McBride, chief economist at the Tax Foundation, told the network this is "common practice for very high-income taxpayers who would otherwise face high rates."

Law professor Ann Lipton of the University of Colorado Boulder told Inc. magazine that millions of shareholders who cannot sell will also have an interest in SpaceX's success and in the company's "reduction of regulatory burden."

For Mitchell Downey, an economist at the Institute for International Economic Studies at Stockholm University, the more striking point is the "horseshoe aspect" — the idea that right-wing and left-wing policies can bend around and meet. He said progressives have for decades backed the concept of Child Development Accounts — investment accounts for every newborn aimed at reducing wealth inequality — but struggled to win federal support. Now the idea could gain popularity thanks to Musk's gift and the Trump Accounts. "It always felt out of reach," Downey said. "But I don't see how Musk's proposal would be feasible without building infrastructure like this."

Timing and controversy

The pledge came two weeks before the November 3 midterms, the vote that will decide control of both chambers of Congress. All House seats and one-third of the Senate are up for election. According to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, Trump's approval rating has fallen to a record-low 33%, and many political observers predict Republicans will lose seats to Democrats.

Musk, who campaigned with Trump in 2024 and led the Department of Government Efficiency in its push to shrink the federal bureaucracy, has given heavily to Republican candidates ahead of the vote. He has donated more than $276 million to Republican groups since July.

Downey said the pledge raises no legal problem. "Individuals are allowed to spend money to support politicians," he told Al Jazeera. "The law is only broken when the money isn't publicly disclosed, or when it's part of an explicit, documented quid pro quo." Still, he said it raises ethical concerns about "the outsized role of outside donors in American elections" — comparable to someone spending heavily on television ads backing a candidate.

On precedent, Downey said it is "hard to pin down." Because Musk is the wealthiest person in modern history, his "doing something involving more money than other very rich people" is perhaps unsurprising. He cited the Gates Foundation's spending over three decades as "a different kind of public gift" — different in that it focuses on health crises in Africa and South Asia rather than on American voters. Last year, Gates pledged to "give away nearly all of my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years" to save lives and improve lives around the world.