Michael Dell on critics of stock gifts to Trump accounts: ‘I think it’s actually nonsense’

I'm joined now by Michael Dell, CEO and founder of Dell Technologies and philanthropist. Michael, thank you so much for joining me. It's a pleasure to have you on Yahoo Finance. >> Happy to be with you. >> Last December, you and your wife Susan announced a $6.25 billion donation to the Trump accounts, the children's investment savings accounts that this administration has ruled out. Today you announced that 10 million of that has been deployed and by next Friday I believe we will see the rest of that deployed and invested. >> That's right. So uh 10 million children already have received $250 from us. And actually by this Friday, just in a few days, 25 million children will have $250 in their account from uh our philanthropic uh entities. >> I know you've already donated so much. Do you have any plans to donate shares of Dell stock at some point in the future? you know, I I actually uh donated shares of Dell stock to our foundation and then and then sold them in the foundation and the foundation is then putting the money in the accounts of these children. So that's that's how we did it. >> When you announced this uh $6 and a quarter billion dollar donation, you said you had hoped that other wealthy philanthropists and executives would follow suit. We really haven't seen too much of that at this point. However, there have been some rule changes by the administration. Now, there are going to be or can be individual stock donations to thousands or even millions of children similar to what you have done. And I'm curious if you think that change is going to bring more people forward in making those donations. >> Yes. In fact, we already have uh Gwen Shotwell from SpaceX uh has, you know, generously said she's going to contribute uh I believe uh two million shares of SpaceX to uh two million children uh in in actually between the ages of 11 and 18 where our gift is focused on children ages 2 to 10. Uh and so there there are already several philanthropists that have joined us. Of course, Brad Gersner in the state of Indiana, Ray Dalio and his wife Barbara in the state of Connecticut. We have people adopting cities, adopting zip codes, and I believe there will be a number of additional philanthropists that join us. And of course, we have now many many employers that are joining in the fund here and either matching the government's contribution or going much larger and contributing to the accounts of the children that work inside their companies or even children in the communities where they operate their businesses. There's been some criticisms of the rule changes in terms of the stock donations that can be donated. That perhaps it could tie a child's long time long-term financial security to one individual company or stock or that billionaire donors could theoretically dump millions of dollars of stock into kids portfolios, manipulate asset prices or secure tax writeoffs. What do you say to those concerns? You know, these these seem like unlikely corner cases to me. I mean, if you take uh so, first of all, our gift, it goes in the S&P 500, right? And that's also true of the government's gift and Ray Barbara Dalio and Brad Gersner. In the case of Gwen Shotwell, she's giving two million shares of SpaceX to uh you know, two to to two million children. It's kind of hard for me to believe that's a bad thing, right? that that these children are going to somehow be negatively influenced because they now have one share of of SpaceX that they didn't have before, right? I mean, the alternative is they they didn't have it, right? So, it seems unlikely that that is some kind of devious plot to somehow influence these two million children. If anything, they're going to be interested in space and capitalism and how capital markets work and compounding and investing and it will spark an interest in them that hopefully uh you know helps them as they become adults. >> That's a good point. I mean, you'd have to give a lot of stock to have that amount of concentration right in any child's portfolio. and and and of course the the sort of base foundation that a child has is the this gift from the United States government of $1,000 or in our case the $250 that's in their account which is in 500 companies the 500 biggest companies. So, you know, pretty hard for people to sort of cook up ways that this is somehow a devious plot by you know successful people. Uh I I think it's actually nonsense. That that that's that's my that's my opinion. >> So it's one thing to uh give money to children and have it invested in an index fund. It's another thing to give them the tools to have the knowhow to manage themselves, the financial education. So are you looking at pairing your monetary efforts with educational efforts? Would you like to see the government take a bigger role in ensuring that this nation's youth has the financial knowhow to invest and to budget properly? >> You know, I think one of the challenges is you have 38% of family households who had no stock at all, right? And so there's really no reason to learn about capitalism or capital if you don't have any. Right? Well, actually now we have 37 states where there is financial education that's already started and we believe that this will kick off a far greater interest in this and you know whether it's done in by the private sector or in community organizations I think it will occur in many many different ways. I I don't view it necessarily as you know a role of the central government to sort of figure out how to do this. I think it's going to spark the interest of these families. You've already seen it in the, you know, thousands and tens of thousands of letters that we've gotten from grandparents and parents and kids. You know, we're starting to kind of spark their interest and hey, I've got a little piece of all these companies. What is that all about? How does that work? So, I think I think it will happen. But you're absolutely right. Financial education is is critical and I think it's going to spark that interest. Maybe they'll tune into your network and learn more about finance. That's all great. >> I hope so. And really, really quick, because I know we got to let you go, what do you think this means for the overall stock market getting more younger Americans interested in invested? >> You know, I think in the context of the overall market, I don't think it really changes the market dynamic because it's a relatively small amount compared to the overall, you know, market capitalization in the United States or the world. But more importantly, it starts them on the path of saving and investing and learning about compounding. And you know, hopefully we're not just giving them $250. We're giving them the beginning of an education and learning. And you know, when I was about eight years old, I had a little savings account and I had, you know, eight or $10 in there and I learned about interest and compounding and that sparked an interest in me that has brought me to this moment to be able to do this. So, you know, if if we're able to spark that kind of interest in capitalism in some of those 25 million children, that will have been a great thing. >> Michael Dell, thank you so much for your insight and for all your efforts. So, appreciate it. Thank you.