Billionaires Michael and Susan Dell pledged $6.25 billion Tuesday to provide 25 million American children under 10 an incentive to claim the new investment accounts for children created as part of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending legislation.

The historic gift has little precedent, with few single charitable commitments in the past 25 years exceeding $1 billion, much less multiple billions. Announced on GivingTuesday, the Dells believe it’s the largest single private commitment made to U.S. children.

Its structure is also unusual. Essentially, it builds on the “ Trump Accounts " program, where the U.S. Department of the Treasury will deposit $1,000 into investment accounts set up by Treasury for American children born between Jan. 1, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2028. The Dells’ gift will use the “Trump Accounts” infrastructure to give $250 to each qualified child under 10.

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Maybe they have diversified as much as possible into crypto and other hard assets and expect hyper inflation. $250 won’t be much given regular inflation these days.

    • ozoned@piefed.social
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      2 days ago

      It’s $250 to kids in specific zip codes that don’t qualify for the $1,000 under the original program, and they have to be under 10, AND it has to go into a specialized account that goes into the stock market.

      The Dell’s are worth $140,000,000,000 and think $250 is helpful when you’re 18 and all of the social nets have been dismantled by people like them.

      Oh and it directly benefits the Dell’s because 1 tax write off, 2 goes right back into the stock market that benefits them, and 3 they look like good Samaritans even though they’re dragons hoarding wealth.

      But yeah $250 in a decade!  WOOHOO!

    • a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      The real grift is that this sort of thing is a small token to “prove” to people that the charity of the wealthy works and is a real actual way to fund education.

      They are working to cut off the supply entirely.