By Mark Bergen

Elon Musk pledged to distribute a share of SpaceX to each American child after competitor Anthropic PBC said it would set aside a portion of its shares for the public benefit.  

“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America,” the company’s chief executive officer wrote on X, the social media platform he owns. “This will be the first of many.” 

It’s not clear how such share contributions would work, and Musk did not elaborate on his donation plans. 

His post came after Anthropic disclosed plans to place 5% of its shares in a fund to make donations that address “the public good.” Regulators across the globe have increased calls for regulating artificial intelligence after insiders flagged the possibility of catastrophic scenarios. Anthropic, which is preparing for a blockbuster public listing, has frequently raised concerns about broad societal risks and dangers of AI. The Claude developer said some of its new fund would go to addressing the “labor market impacts” of the technology. 

After Anthropic’s announcement on Sunday, Musk replied to the company’s X account to say he recommends giving shares “directly to the public.”  

Musk is by far the world’s richest person with a net worth of more than $900 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His SpaceX shares account for the vast majority of that wealth, at about $700 billion, with the rest coming from Tesla Inc., Boring Co. and Neuralink.

The billionaire has a history of floating ideas that don’t materialize or suggesting plans he later explains away as jokes. Musk pinned his latest post about SpaceX shares to the top of his X page.