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American billionaire Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, will begin delivering more than 2 million shares of the rocket maker to children's Trump Accounts in December, completing a gift she first pledged in July.
The shares are moving into escrow ahead of the first deposits, Shotwell said on X. She and her husband, Robert, pledged the stock when SpaceX shares closed at $162, valuing the gift at about $320 million. At roughly $135 a share in late October, it was worth about $270 million.
Each eligible child will receive a single SpaceX share. The first round covers 11- to 17-year-olds who live in zip codes with a median family income of $57,000 or less, along with children in zip codes too small for the census to report income data. A second round, still being finalized, will reach 11- to 17-year-olds in military families serving overseas, children in foster care, and more children from families earning $90,000 or less in counties near the Shotwells' home in Texas.
Giving company stock to children
The gift relies on U.S. Treasury rules that let wealthy donors give shares of their own companies directly to children through the new accounts.
Trump Accounts are tax-deferred investment accounts for children that launched on July 4. The Treasury deposits $1,000 for each child born from Jan. 1, 2025, through Dec. 31, 2028. Older children, including the 11- to 17-year-olds in the first round of Shotwell's gift, do not receive that seed money.
Other billionaires have backed the program. Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, pledged $6.25 billion last year to put $250 into the accounts of 25 million children. Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and chief executive, has said he will give one SpaceX share to every child in the United States next year. With about 72 million Americans under 18, that would be roughly 35 times the number of shares in Shotwell's gift.
Shotwell, 62, joined SpaceX in 2002 as its seventh employee and vice president of business development. She became president in 2008 and has overseen the company's growth from a startup that had yet to reach orbit into the world's most valuable rocket and satellite business. Her fortune comes mainly from her SpaceX stake, which rose sharply in value when the company went public in June.
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