Musk promises every US child a free SpaceX share as a gift

Elon Musk has promised to give every child in the United States a share of SpaceX. The billionaire, often called the richest person in the world, owns 38 percent of the company. It is still unclear how such a giveaway would work technically and on what terms; Musk himself called it the first step in a series of similar moves.

The announcement came shortly after US President Donald Trump promised last month to pay every American adult five thousand dollars (about 108,500 crowns) if Republicans keep their majority in Congress in the November elections.

According to an estimate by the German news agency, at the current price the package of shares for children would be worth more than ten billion dollars. For Musk that is only a small part of a fortune now estimated at just over 900 billion dollars, made up mostly of shares in SpaceX and the electric carmaker Tesla.

The news followed a report that the artificial intelligence developer Anthropic will put five percent of its shares into a fund for the public good. Musk replied on the social network X that it would be better to give the shares directly to people.

In June, SpaceX carried out the largest initial public offering (IPO) to date, raising 85.7 billion dollars. In September its Starship rocket reached orbit for the first time, an important milestone in Musk's plans to take people to Mars. After the listing the shares at first rose sharply, but they now trade below 150 dollars, against a peak of over 200.

Investors still doubt the company's valuation of around 1.9 trillion dollars: the rocket business is still small, and the high price rests on expectations tied to Musk's promises in AI. There SpaceX lags well behind Anthropic and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz