Warren Buffett and other mega-billionaires might want to emulate Elon Musk and give away a portion of their fortunes to American children.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO early Monday posted on social media that he "will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America." He added: "This will be the first of many."
The initial Musk gift -- just over 1% of his SpaceX stake -- is valued at an estimated $10 billion, based on SpaceX's stock price of $148 and some 70 million children under the age of 18 in U.S.
Buffett's stake in Berkshire Hathaway is worth about $150 billion and the 96-year-old former Berkshire chairman has acknowledged the challenge for his three children in giving away that money by 2034 -- the target date set by Buffett in July. Buffett doesn't want to create a long-lived foundation like the Ford Foundation. His desire is for his money to be distributed soon after his children's foundations receive it.
His three children -- Susan, Howard and Peter -- have said they are daunted by the prospect since they run foundations that each give away about $500 million a year -- way below the $15 billion-plus annual total that they could be responsible for donating after Buffett's death.
So maybe Buffett could relieve them of some of that burden by giving away one class B share to every child in the country. That gift would be worth $532 per child -- topping the Musk gift -- given the current price of the B shares and total about $37 billion, or about a quarter of Buffett's Berkshire stake.
Buffett had no immediate comment.
There would be questions of logistics for any Buffett donation -- how do you get a share of Berkshire stock to every child -- but that seems doable. Musk, of course, would face the same logistical challenge.
Such a gift likely would be a great investment for America's children, given Berkshire's great balance sheet and strong earnings. Berkshire stock could compound at a close to a 10% annual rate over the next decade based on its earnings prospects. A gift could also encourage children to learn more about Berkshire, investing, finance, and Buffett's legacy.
Among the causes favored by the Buffett foundations are abortion rights, African health and agriculture, Nebraska communities, and the upstate New York region around the city of Kingston. Those foundations are the Sherwood Foundation (Susan), the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, NoVo Foundation (Peter) and Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation run by Allen Greenberg, Susan's ex-husband.
Other super-rich corporate leaders with fortunes above $100 billion could consider similar moves to Musk. To name a few: Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Musk has always been a maverick, and his planned gift to American children is something that his fellow centibillionaires should consider emulating.