SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell has pledged 2 million shares to Trump Accounts, a move that Fortune says could be worth about $330 million at current prices. Shotwell and her husband, Robert, said in July they would 'gift a share of our SpaceX stock to a Trump Account for each of more than two million children across our great nation.'
The numbers come first. The pledge targets kids ages 11 to 17 in lower-income areas, with extra emphasis on those near the couple’s central Texas home. President Donald Trump valued the gift at $325 million at the time, and Treasury rules now make similar stock donations possible for other wealthy donors.
Those rules took effect Sept. 30 and allow the ultrawealthy, working through charities such as private foundations, to put shares of publicly traded U.S. companies directly into Trump Accounts. The accounts launched July 4, and as of Oct. 1 Treasury had opened one for nearly every eligible child under 18, or about 60 million kids.
Before the change, Trump Accounts held low-cost index funds. The new exception for donated stock opens the door for founders whose wealth is tied up in the shares of the companies they built. Fortune quoted Kevin Gentry, founder and CEO of TenX Strategies, saying this could be an 'extraordinarily attractive way to give' for a founder sitting on billions of dollars of appreciated stock.
The tax structure matters. Scott Hanson, cofounder of Allworth Financial, told Fortune there is 'no tax deduction for giving either stock or money to Trump Accounts,' but the 'tax play' is the stock transferred to a foundation before it is gifted to a child’s Trump account. Donors who give a private foundation publicly traded stock held for more than a year can generally deduct its full market value, up to 20% of adjusted gross income each year, with excess carried forward for up to five years, according to the IRS. Sherman Standberry, a CPA and CEO at My CPA Coach, said giving stock away is not a sale, so 'there is no taxable gain to tax.'
That makes the structure especially efficient for stock with a large built-in gain. Gentry pointed to a founder who paid $1 million for stock now worth $100 million, noting that selling would likely trigger taxes on $99 million in gains. His question was blunt: 'Why sell an appreciated asset, pay the tax, and give what’s left when the tax code may allow you to give the asset itself?'
But Treasury also acknowledged the tradeoff. The same rules say kids 'will bear some additional risk in the form of increased portfolio concentration' when donations come as stock rather than cash. Families cannot choose the stock or, for now, refuse it. Shares generally must be held for five years, or until the end of the year a child turns 17.
This is where the policy turns from philanthropy into leverage. It rewards donors who can move appreciated stock through the charitable system while keeping the tax bill off the sale ledger. It also asks children to shoulder more concentration risk in exchange for a stake in a single company’s future. Capital rewards clear rules, and Treasury has now written one. The market has already voted on the upside for the donor. The question is whether families and recipients get enough say in the downside.
