Brad Gerstner explains the mechanics of Trump accounts (Invest America accounts): a $1,000 government seed at birth invested in the S&P 500, free to hold for life, that could grow to $50,000 by age 18 with small regular contributions. ✦ AI generated
Brad Gerstner · All-In Podcast · 2026-07-11 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 65:16
“Just explain the what it is and then you should contrast it to like a 529 account and some of these other things.”
So, as you guys know, the idea was very simple. $1,000 for every child at birth that could compound for their life in a privately owned investment account. So you're born, you get a social security number and you get an investment account. And if you do that, you start with $1,000 and somebody matches that and you save 10 bucks a week, that's $50,000 at age 18.
verbatim transcript · starts at 65:16
65:16people don't even know what a Trump account is. Just explain the what it is and then you should contrast it to like a 529 account and some of these other things. >> Great. So, as you guys know, the idea was very simple. $1,000 for every child at birth that could compound for their life in a privatelyowned investment account. So you're born, you get a social security number and you get
65:41an investment account. And if you do that, you start with $1,000 and somebody matches that and you save 10 bucks a week, that's $50,000 at age 18. And the idea >> and that's invested in the S&P 500. >> S&P 500. So when these accounts are created, all that money goes into the S&P 500. There's no cost. It's a free account for the lifetime of the recipient. And that
66:07was packaged into the Invest America Act, which was passed into law a year ago as part of the reconciliation bill. So that's what actually occurred on July 4th of this year. All those accounts were created for all of these kids. That's the reason the Trump account app is number one in the app store because parents started hearing about this and saying, "Whoa, I need to go download and
66:28get this set up for my child." We had over a million and a half counts created in the first 24 hours after the launch of this. We had over a billion dollars of deposits. So, I was contributing money into the accounts of my nieces, my nephews, my kids, friends, kids. Every account h app has a QR code. Jason, so somebody can just send you the QR code
66:52for your kid. You double you Apple Pay on your phone, double click and you send them 25 or 50 bucks. So that is kind of the the most essential part of it. But we also had a bunch of announcements around philanthrop when you're 18, 19, 20 years old and start putting it towards school or you can roll it into your IRA, >> Roth IRA, I guess your your your
67:16retirement account. Obviously, Michael and Susan Dell were the were the anchors here. Over $6 billion, $250 for each of 25 million children, primarily lower and middle inome kids. SpaceX's president, Gwen Shotwell, she joined the party, put $350 million in her SpaceX shares, uh, and for children of lower income communities. So, with this, there's a device or some way to do it. So, you can target specific communities by geo uh,