Elon Musk has said he will give a share in SpaceX to every child in America. The pledge is blunt and vast in reach. It arrives with almost no accompanying detail to explain how the gift would be delivered, held or later used.
“Every kid in America”
— Elon Musk
That was the phrase Musk used to mark who would receive the gift. He did not, in what has been reported, fix an age, a nationality test or a timetable. A share is not a savings account. It is a sliver of a company, and its worth would move with the fortunes of SpaceX.
A cluster of gifts for the young
Musk is not the first technology figure to turn to children as the object of a public gesture. Anthropic, an artificial intelligence rival to SpaceX, earlier said it would form a public benefit fund. Other technology moguls have contributed to savings accounts for children.
“a public benefit fund”
— Anthropic, on the vehicle it said it would form
The three strands now sit in plain view, alike in audience and unlike in form.
- A SpaceX share for every child in America, pledged by Elon Musk
- A public benefit fund, which Anthropic said it would form
- Contributions to savings accounts for children by other technology moguls
Taken together the moves amount to a public contest of gifts aimed at people too young to have asked for them. Whether a SpaceX share becomes a nest egg, a souvenir or a legal tangle will depend on terms that have not been published. Until they are, the country has a promise, not a holding.
