NewzElon Musk on Monday pledged to give one share of his company SpaceX to “every kid in America” next year.The offer arrived a day after artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced in a social media post that it will commit 5% of its shares to a new “public benefit” fund.In a response to that Sunday post, Musk wrote, “I recommend giving the shares directly to the public.”Shares of SpaceX, which will report its quarterly earnings on Tuesday, closed at $146.03 on Friday.With approximately 73 million children under the age of 18 in the United States, that would put the value of Musk's pledge at about $10.66 billion.Anthropic said Sunday that the shares it is committing will go to the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a new entity within the company. The fund's worth will potentially increase as the shares grow in value.Musk did not provide further details on how his share pledge will be carried out, but did add in his post that “This will be the first of many.”The announcements by Musk and Anthropic arrive as Americans grow increasingly wary of AI. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that most Americans, 64%, think AI is developing “too fast,” while 27% say its development has been “about right” and only 8% say it’s moving “too slow.”Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SpaceXAI’s Musk and other prominent industry leaders said last month that AI’s development needs to slow down.
The consensus came after an Anthropic researcher resigned with a dire warning about the threats the technology poses to humanity. But obstacles including domestic and global competition, profit motivations and pushback from President Donald Trump all stand in the way of a coordinated effort to pace AI’s development.Musk has quietly become the biggest known donor in this year’s midterm elections, doling out more than $276 million since July to try to save Republican majorities in Congress.Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and the company’s five other cofounders established Anthropic as a public benefit corporation, a designation that for-profit companies select to balance financial goals and social impact.Anthropic is planning a massive initial public offering as soon as November. In June the company said that it had submitted a confidential filing with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission for its proposed IPO.That same month, M… Shares of SpaceX are down 35.3% since peaking days after that… Elon Musk’s SpaceX and artificial intelligence giant Anthropic have pledged big financial giveaways as Big Tech firms come under pressure over the potential impact of AI on humanity.
Musk said on Monday that he would give one of his shares at his rocket company, which owns xAI, to every child in America next year. The billionaire’s announcement came after Anthropic said it would commit 5% of its shares to a fund that will make donations for the “public good”. Anthropic is laying the ground for a potential blockbuster stock market listing that could value the firm at more than $1tn (£750bn).
SpaceX set the record for biggest initial public offering (IPO) in history in June, raising $85.7bn. The pledges come at a time when the AI industry is under intense scrutiny over safety concerns and fears about its impact on society and jobs. Details over how each American child would be handed a share in SpaceX have not been disclosed.
In a post on social media, Musk said: “Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America. This will be the first of many.” It came after he responded to Anthropic’s public fund pledge with: “I recommend giving the shares directly to the public. This is what I will be doing.” Anthropic said none of the shares held in its Public Benefit Fund would be used for lobbying or political donations in the US or overseas.
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