What’s really fueling the recent generosity boom

Anthropic, Elon Musk, and even the government are looking to give away money. What’s the catch?

[Source Illustrations: Adobe Stock and Getty Images]

Generosity is in the air, or so it would seem. The Trump administration recently mailed a round of $500 checks to almost a million users of Healthcare.gov. The AI rivals OpenAI and Anthropic have promised to share their (eventual) wealth with the public beyond investors, and Anthropic this week got a bit more specific, proposing a Public Benefit Fund pegged at 5% of the company’s overall value. And never to be outdone, Elon Musk promptly pledged to give “every kid in America” a share in SpaceX. 

What explains the abrupt rise of these largesse Olympics among some of our most powerful institutions? Presumably there’s actual generosity involved.........

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