We’re watching the beginning of universal basic income (UBI), and it’s coming from the companies building the tech. Elon Musk pledged one SpaceX share to every American child next year (about 73 million kids, roughly $10.5 billion). “The first of many,” he said. Anthropic committed 5% of its shares, around $48 billion, to a Public Benefit Fund that can grow toward 20%. It can donate to nonprofits or pay specific populations directly. They’ve also set aside $200 million to study AI’s effect on jobs. Meanwhile the US government has taken equity in 36 companies since mid-2025, about $20 billion, mostly chips and quantum. Intel gave up 10%. Sam Altman has proposed a 5% OpenAI stake for a sovereign wealth fund that pays Americans dividends. No formal UBI yet. But to me this is the beginning of it: AI creates the wealth, and someone’s starting to hand it back. Great for everyone in the US. China will likely do a similar thing. Singapore and the UAE could pull it off with their sovereign wealth funds. But Europe? They are in serious trouble now that the jobs are starting to disappear. Nobody seems to be even thinking of this yet.