SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell says her gift of more than 2 million SpaceX shares will reach children's Trump Accounts in December. Shotwell announced the update on X on Friday, Oct. 30. She said the shares were "transferring to escrow as we speak." The shares are a personal gift from Shotwell and her husband, Robert, not a SpaceX company program.
Who gets shares first
- Round one: 11- to 17-year-olds in zip codes where the median family income is $57,000 or less. It also covers zip codes too small for the census to report that figure. Shotwell said these families "should receive a notice by Monday."
- Round two, in a few weeks: eligible 11- to 17-year-olds in military families serving overseas, children in foster care, and more children in Texas counties near the couple's home where the median family income is $90,000 or less.
Not a Tesla App notes why the gift targets older children. Trump Accounts, which launched on July 4, 2026, get a $1,000 Treasury deposit for each child born from 2025 through 2028. Children aged 11 to 17 don't get that seed money. Drive Tesla Canada points out that only U.S. children qualify.
What it's worth
Shotwell's post did not put a dollar value on the shares. Not a Tesla App estimates the gift at roughly $270 million at about $135 a share, down from more than $324 million when she first pledged it in July, when shares closed at $162.
Musk's bigger pledge
The gift is separate from Elon Musk's Oct. 19 pledge to give one SpaceX share to every American child next year. Drive Tesla Canada said that gift could be worth about $10.5 billion. Musk has not said how those shares will be distributed. Shotwell thanked SpaceX, the Treasury, the IRS and the Dell Foundation for months of work on the transfer.
