Today, apparently, SpaceX goes public. The Magical Musktory Tour is Coming to Take You Away. If you are amenable. Krugman writes:
So Musk, having bailed out X by rolling it into xAI, is now bailing out xAI by rolling it into SpaceX, which has a genuinely successful business in Starlink.
And today SpaceX is going public. Its initial public offering (IPO) debuts today on the Nasdaq at a price that implies a $1.77 trillion valuation for a company that had revenues of only $18.7 billion last year and lost money.
How can this, um, astronomical valuation be justified? The IPO is premised partly on the assumption that retail investors will buy in, not because they have made any rational assessment of SpaceX as a business, but because they believe that they are buying stakes in Elon Musk’s genius.
But the ranks of the faithful may not be enough to keep the shell game going. So Musk’s Wall Street allies are also rigging the game. Some of the major stock indexes, notably the Nasdaq 100 and FTSE Russell, have recently changed their rules in order to admit SpaceX almost immediately.
It’s important to understand that the inclusion of a company’s shares in a major stock index carries enormous financial rewards. A large share of stocks is held in “index funds,” mutual funds that hold portfolios designed to mimic the behavior of major indexes. Thus there is an immediate demand for the shares of a company when its shares are added to a major index because index funds must now add them to their portfolios.
Historically, the major indexes have waited at least a year after a company’s IPO before considering its inclusion in their market measures, to give the stock time to “mature”. The bending of the rules for SpaceX shows that Musk is again exerting his ability to co-opt and corrupt key institutions. (Notably, the S&P 500 has resisted the pressure and will wait a year before including SpaceX.)
Which brings me to my final point. The immense human Ponzi scheme that is Elon Musk will eventually collapse. But traditional Ponzi schemes only exploit investors who choose to participate. This time much of the money propping up Musk’s scam will come from ordinary Americans who have in effect been forced to buy in. Approximately 52% of mutual fund assets are now invested in index or index-based funds, and over 50% of American households are invested in mutual funds. Thanks to the collusion between Musk and Wall Street, enabled by the perception that the Trump administration has Musk’s back, many if not most of these small investors will be dragged, willy-nilly, into fueling the Musk juggernaut.
Should anyone in Trump’s America be surprised?
With that degree of skepticism, Krugman should challenge Musk to a cage match on the White House lawn.
Should you wonder, what's next, try -
search = anthropic openai s-1 filing with sec ipo plannng?
So Grok which can buy Cursor for chump change, is wrapped into rocket science IPO legend, or whatever. Link.
So, a search = high tech firms investing into anthropic before any anthropic ipo
yields, a half-year old link -
Tech giants pour billions into Anthropic as circular AI investments roll on
ChatGPT competitor secures billions from Microsoft and Nvidia in deal to use cloud services and chips.
And now what? Cursor, Claude and Chat x.xx (the numbers grow) movement, SpaceX with its X.ai, all cashing in while AI booms? Is there a pattern? Is there a trend? Are the work-for-stock gamblers at the firms going to see a cash out, before any AI takeoff or splat? And speaking of ponzi schemes, how's the treasuries market doing? But -- what do I know?
Bet instead on oil futures with Iran holding onto Hormuz? For how long to hold that before trading out, with Trump saying a war's-end deal is practically done, and Iran not saying the same thing?
Seems as if market risk needs a hedge, so what's the latest at the CFTC commodities trading regulators, and their keeping us safe from flim-flam? Perhaps move Bill Pulte into a regulatory leadership post there, to quell market worry, to make investors feel secure again? And, confessing ignorance, who are the cage fighters on the White House lawn going to be, and is there yet a reliable betting line?
Do you think Krugman keeps his money in bills stuffed into a sock, kept under the mattress? Or invested in the Vancouver Stock Exchange?
________________UPDATE________________
Are you surprised, Zerohedge gives the IPO a featured post? The IPO gets top billing there over hashing over intricacies of Iraq War settlement speculation.
____________FURTHER UPDATE___________
Shoes dropping. https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/politics/2026/06/11/oregon-treasurer-spacex-ipo/90515330007/
Oregon State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner joined leaders from Illinois and Maryland in questioning stock market rule changes ahead of the highly-anticipated IPO of Elon Musk's SpaceX on June 12. The company went public with a stock price of $135 for each of its nearly 556 million shares.
Steiner, Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs and Maryland State Comptroller Brooke Lierman penned a letter to Nasdaq President and CEO Adena Friedman on June 10. In it, they asked Nasdaq, a major stock exchange, to justify changes to its rules and explain the analysis behind them.
A new "fast-entry" rule allows, among other things, companies that have been recently listed as public to be added to the Nasdaq-100 after being traded for 15 days.
In her own statement, Steiner argued the rule change lowers accountability and says she wants to protect against "unnecessary market volatility and disproportionate risk" to public employee pensions, as well as index funds everyday people invest in.
Steiner said "Oregon teachers, firefighters, nurses and other beneficiaries—who entrust their assets to us to invest responsibly—will own SpaceX shares, through Treasury’s participation in passive index funds."
Steiner, Frerichs and Lierman in their letter said they represent a combined 1.5 million people whose "retirement security depends on the long-term health of the U.S. public capital markets and stability of passive investment vehicles tracking indexes with reliable, tested inclusion methodologies."
A similar letter was sent to the London Stock Exchange Group and FTSE Russell by Frerichs, Lierman, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, according to Reuters.
As in what is this shit? We pension funds do index trading and rely upon low risk. And you are stacking the deck with Elon as the AI boom may be waning. Stop!
Reuters. A month ago.
BOSTON, May 13 (Reuters) - Leaders of three of the biggest U.S. public pension systems said they have major concerns over SpaceX's "extreme" ownership and control set-up in its upcoming public stock listing, urging founder and CEO Elon Musk to remove provisions that would curb shareholder protections.
"We are writing to express our serious concerns with the reported novel and extreme governance structure and provisions SpaceX is planning to disclose in its registration statement," New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, New York City Comptroller Mark Levine and California Public Employees' Retirement System CEO Marcie Frost said in a letter sent Wednesday to Musk that was reviewed by Reuters.
The officials - representing three of the top four largest public pension plans in the U.S. - objected to the amount of power the board has given Musk over the company, including voting control over the stock, veto power over his own removal as CEO, and protections from litigation, including mandatory arbitration for SpaceX shareholder claims.The SpaceX listing is expected to be the biggest initial public offering in history, with the company looking to raise $75 billion, with a $1.75 trillion valuation.OBJECTIONS TO MANAGEMENT-FAVORABLE STRUCTURE
The IPO "would constitute the most management-favorable governance structure ever brought to the U.S. public markets at this scale," they wrote in the letter addressed to Musk, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, and SpaceX Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen, citing reporting by Reuters and other media organizations on the company's confidential registration statement filed with securities regulators.
Yeah. Elon keeps 85% of the voting stock, and that's raw. But, it's disclosed. You have notice. Stop bitching. Step right up.
By Ross Kerber
June 11 (Reuters) - Investment leaders from four large states pressed Nasdaq and FTSE Russell for details about recent rule changes favoring SpaceX and other megacap IPOs, and suggested the index providers put the moves on pause unless they have reviewed risks to investors.
Letters to both companies seen by Reuters on Thursday raise concerns about the impact Elon Musk's rocket and satellite communications company could have on other investors through its record-breaking $75 billion debut.
Once trading begins, SpaceX's huge valuation and tight governance structure creates risks such as high volatility and conflicts of interest between the index firms and users, the officials said.
Passive funds are poised to buy billions of dollars of SpaceX shares, depending on when it joins high-profile indexes. Both Nasdaq and FTSE relaxed their entry criteria such as by shortening trading-history requirements, while S&P Dow Jones stuck to tradition.
"We respectfully urge the FTSE Russell Index Governance Board to reconsider its methodology changes and not place the interests of listing companies and their underwriters ahead of the interests of the passive fund assets that will bear the cost of any resulting mispricing" that may occur with SpaceX or other IPOs soon to follow like OpenAI and Anthropic, reads one of the letters, sent to FTSE Russell and its parent, London Stock Exchange Group, or LSEG.
It was signed by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs, and Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman. All oversee state retirement assets, including passive funds that would become forced buyers of SpaceX based on the index actions.
An LSEG representative declined to comment.
It is simplistic to say labor-capital at it again, but Elon hates unions and union pension funds have no reason to love, or even trust, Elon.
However, if your retirement funds are in any large measure invested in index funds, and this IPO is the start of something; it sure seems as if underwriters and traded asset vendors count more than whoever. Not right, but how it is.
This reflects back to what Krugman wrote, citing NYT first publishing the hypothetical. It is called SpaceX, but there is that X.ai in there, disclosed. Of course if this SpaceX IPO strikes you as risky, there is always the Trump family to invest in. Truth Social, and the crypto. They take money in exchange for a part of the action. The American Way.
Space stocks are only part of the story; after all, SpaceX isn’t really a space company; it’s a wireless telecom and artificial intelligence company with rockets.
Shares of Verizon Communications, AT&T and T-Mobile US have all traded lower in recent days, partly on fears of disruption by SpaceX. The SpaceX IPO could have the reverse effect on them that it has on the space sector. Wireless shares could bounce, especially if the IPO doesn’t go well.
Defining not going well is important. Closing down on day one would qualify. That’s a risk for the entire market. SpaceX is the first money-losing AI company to go public. OpenAI and Anthropic are expected to come later this year.
The development of useful AI underpins the building boom that has supported everything from Nvidia, which sells the chips, to companies such as Alphabet that are monetizing AI tools, to companies such as Caterpillar, GE Vernova, and Vertiv that build, power, and operate AI data centers, not to mention all of the utilities that are up because electricity demand is rising.
A weak SpaceX IPO is a risk to the entire market. Eventually, a successful SpaceX IPO is a risk to many of those companies too. If AI data centers in space are a thing, the terrestrial data center builders will have less business than expected right now. That, however, is an issue for investors to weigh years from now, after the SpaceX IPO.
Then again, buying the IPO might be * * *
FURTHER: If you want more confusion, Nvidia makes max money selling expensive specialized server chips for server farms, to house and communicate AI chatting with you and your PC. That's a fact. So what do you make of this? AI shops are looking at designing and using their own chips, bypassing Nvidia. So Nvidia looks back at the desktop - the retail market, beyond gpu boards for the gamers, and into a MS Windows thing, running on Nvidia hardware. Search it.
