Elon Musk and Anthropic unveil AI wealth-sharing plans that could reach over $110 billion

Elon Musk pledged to give American children over $10 billion in SpaceX shares, offering millions of families ownership in his AI technology empire.On Oct. 19, the world's first trillionaire announced he would distribute one personally owned SpaceX share to every child in the United States in 2027, potentially creating about 72 million new shareholders.At SpaceX's Oct. 16 closing price of $146.03, the proposed distribution would represent roughly $10.5 billion in equity, making it one of the largest individual philanthropic commitments in recent years.The announcement followed AI developer Anthropic's proposal to commit 5% of its shares to a new public benefit fund, subject to shareholder approval. At the firm's current valuation of around $2 trillion, that would be $100 billion.The company could increase that allocation by another two percentage points for every 50% increase in its valuation above a specified baseline. However, this is at its board's discretion.Anthropic intends to use the fund for charitable donations, direct distributions to selected populations and initiatives addressing AI-related job displacement. Including existing employee and founder pledges, the company es...