马斯克的这项宣布是在人工智慧竞争对手 Anthropic PBC 揭露其公益计划数小时后发布的。正在准备进行估值高达 1.5 兆至 2 兆美元首次公开募股（IPO）的 Anthropic 表示，将拨出 5% 的股份成立公共利益基金，以应对人工智慧带来的广泛社会风险与劳动力市场冲击；马斯克对此回应建议应将股份直接分给公众。
在此之前，美国总统川普政府设立了「川普帐户」计划，为 2025 年至 2028 年出生的美国儿童提供 1,000 美元，而 SpaceX 总裁格温·肖特维尔（Gwynne Shotwell）夫妇今年稍早也已透过该帐户向超过 200 万名儿童赠送了 SpaceX 股票。马斯克目前是全球首富，净资产超过 9,000 亿美元（其中约 7,000 亿美元来自 SpaceX），尽管他过去曾有提出构想却未实现或事后称之为玩笑的纪录，但他已将此贴文置顶于其 X 页面。
Elon Musk pledged on the social media platform X to give one share of SpaceX to every child in America next year, stating it would be the first of many such donations. With the US Census Bureau estimating around 72 million children in the country, the donation would be worth approximately $10.5 billion at the current share price of $146, though Musk did not elaborate on how the distribution would work.
Musk's announcement came just hours after artificial intelligence rival Anthropic PBC disclosed its own public benefit plan. Anthropic, which is preparing for a blockbuster initial public offering that could value the company between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion, announced it would place 5% of its shares into a public good fund to address broad societal risks and labor market impacts from AI, prompting Musk to reply with a recommendation to give shares directly to the public.
The pledge follows the Trump administration's establishment of the Trump Accounts initiative, which provides $1,000 to American children born between 2025 and 2028, an initiative through which SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and her husband gifted SpaceX stock to over 2 million children earlier this year. Musk is currently the world's richest person with a net worth exceeding $900 billion—about $700 billion of which comes from SpaceX—and although he has a history of floating ideas that do not materialize or are later dismissed as jokes, he has pinned this latest post to the top of his X page.