The Trump Accounts initiative will make "every child in America a capitalist from birth," according to Altimeter Capital founder and CEO Brad Gerstner.
Gerstner is one of the key figures behind the Trump administration initiative that will allow all children born after Jan. 1, 2025, to start life with an investment account seeded with an initial $1,000.
The initiative began with a push begun four years ago to "reconnect every child in America with the American Dream," Gerstner said during an event held Wednesday by President Donald Trump to announce the initiative, which aired live on Newsmax and the free Newsmax2 streaming platform.
Gerstner, who partnered with Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell to bring the private sector into the program, tied it to Trump's "Main Street Agenda," along with the president's calls for no taxes on tips, Social Security or overtime.
The effort advanced after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, authored the Invest America Act in the Senate and after Dell "partnered with me to bring the private sector to bear on this," said Gerstner, adding Trump quickly embraced the concept.
"He immediately understood the impact that this wasn't about the wealthy folks in America," Gerstner said. "This was about the 50 million American families who will be lifted up and reconnected to the American dream."
With Trump Accounts, "every child in America, from rural Missouri to rural Indiana, from Trenton to Compton, is going to start off life with an investment account at birth, seeded with $1,000," which will give children a personal stake in major U.S. companies, he added.
"They privately own Nvidia and Microsoft," among other companies, he said, describing the plan as a private-market approach that will not be "dependent on government, independent from government, not more socialism."
"The answer to more socialism is more capitalism," he added.
Gerstner credited the administration and congressional officials for advancing the program, saying it "would not have happened without the leadership of our Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent," and also citing the leadership of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Cruz.
Gerstner also praised Trump's engagement with business leaders.
"For too long, they had no access in Washington to the White House," he said. "People didn't want to hear their ideas."
Trump, however, "is voracious in his desire to hear from America's leaders about how to make America better," Gerstner said.
Trump Accounts, he added, is "citizen democracy at its best."
Gerstner has personally pledged $250 per child under age 5 in his home state of Indiana.
Dell, speaking after Gerstner, said passage of the legislation was difficult and cast the program as a platform for broader participation.
"The fact that this bill got passed itself was a miracle," Dell said.
Trump Accounts, he noted, "creates a platform for communities, for families, for corporations, for philanthropists to add to these accounts."
"In not too many years, essentially every child in America will have savings invested in the greatest companies in this country," Dell said.
"That will change the face of this country over the next 10, 20, 30 years," he added.
"The best investment a country can make is in its people, especially in its children," said Dell, calling the initiative "an incredible platform for that to occur at enormous scale."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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