Timeline
- 7.5
Anthropic Gives 5% of Itself to the Public. Musk Answers by Giving Away SpaceX Shares
Anthropic said Sunday it will commit 5% of its shares to a new Public Benefit Fund, subject to stockholder approval, and says roughly 20% of its stock will go to public causes once co-founder and employee pledges are counted. Less than a day later, Elon Musk posted on X that he will give one of his SpaceX shares to every child in the United States next year, calling it "the first of many." The move puts a slice of a frontier AI lab's equity into a vehicle for public-benefit giving, and Musk's counter-pledge redirected the discussion toward distributing shares directly to individuals rather than routing them through a fund. The fund is structured as a wholly owned limited-liability company rather than a nonprofit, which Anthropic says gives it room to switch between types of giving; the board can add another 2% of shares each time the company's value rises 50% above an undisclosed baseline, and none of the fund's equity may be used for lobbying or political donations. Musk's pledge covers roughly 72 million US children, about $10.5 billion at SpaceX's price of roughly $147 a share — just over 1% of the 6.42 billion shares he held as of June 30, per an SEC filing.
- 7.5
Anthropic says it’s committing 5% of its shares to a ‘public benefit fund’
On October 18, 2026, Anthropic said it plans to commit 5% of its shares to the newly established Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, an entity structured so that its stake increases as the company grows. The commitment is subject to stockholder approval. Anthropic said the fund will have greater flexibility and scale, allowing it to explore options such as large donations to traditional nonprofits or direct distributions to specific populations. The fund's stake is designed to increase as the company's valuation grows, rather than remaining fixed at 5%. The arrangement has not yet been approved by stockholders.