Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jun/19/spacex-retirement-savings-elon-musk

by ValentineC • 1 month ago

253 142 1 month ago

mattmaroon5• 1 month ago

Everybody is upset about the rule change, but to be honest, they would’ve just ended up in the same position a few months later. Elon has kept Tesla’s market cap at 5-10x what any reasonable investor would think it should be for the better part of a decade. It’s not like SpaceX is going to tank in the next 3 months and they’ll be left holding the bag. It’s not like it wasn’t going to end up in every index in a year.

And to be clear, I’m not saying it’s a good thing. I just don’t think it matters so much.

Retric6• 1 month ago

Without rapid purchasing by indexes SpaceX’s stock would likely to tank as ever more people would be able to sell over the first year.

It’s a 24 year old company with a current high flying stock price based on very questionable numbers.

pclmulqdq2• 1 month ago

We all said that about Tesla for years, and a lot of people got burned on the trade. This time may be different, but it also may not be.

nullstyle2• 1 month ago

With several large bets on the table with starship that have yet to play out.

Remember mars by 2024? I think that was around the time they started accepting deposits on tesla semi.

Panzer04• 1 month ago

Depends, they've gone to pains to ensure the indexes will buy as share lockups end. It's dodgy no matter how you look at.

The one saving grace is s&p isnt changing anything, and they were by far the biggest index.

sidibe• 1 month ago

The whole IPO was designed to be like a short squeeze where index funds have to buy soon but there's not enough shares. For the little float that's available they are weighting it significantly more than they should by previous rules. They need to have tens of billions worth of what was 70 billion by next week, and retail investors who got in on the IPO were told by their brokers if they sell early on they will not get to participate in future IPOs.

There were not enough shares actually trading for the index funds to fulfill their requirements that's why the price keeps going up

downrightmike• 1 month ago

China enters the chat https://spacenews.com/china-conducts-4-launches-in-3-days-bu...

ribosometronome• 1 month ago

Moving to have 401ks investing in it when 5% of the stock is publicly available versus 30-40%+ that would have been available on the previous timelines seems like it could have pretty dramatic effects on its price.

loeg4• 1 month ago

The relevant indices (S&P500, Vanguard) buy in proportion to available float -- i.e., its market cap is weighted by 5%. Only Nasdaq 100 ignores float, stupidly, but almost no money, especially 401(k) money, is in that.

HWR_143• 1 month ago

They probably won't be on the S&P for years, because of profitability requirements.

redox992• 1 month ago

If they can keep google and anthropic deals, they're already profitable.

asveikau• 1 month ago

I got a good investment vehicle for you. How would you like to purchase shares in the Brooklyn bridge? You could see returns in the form of tolls.

mschuster912• 1 month ago

It’s not like SpaceX is going to tank in the next 3 months and they’ll be left holding the bag.

A stock's value can disappear in a matter of days to a degree it leads to a complete collapse. It has happened before, see Enron or Wirecard.

It’s not like it wasn’t going to end up in every index in a year.

Sure, but it's still not wise to let unripe stocks into most American and RoW retirement funds. There's a reason why many complex software projects keep some sort of "staging" tree, and the stock markets should do so as well.

wolvoleo• 1 month ago

Bubbles always blow. Maybe not in 3 months but eventually someone will figure that those trillions can't possibly be made back ever again.

And then the fall down is hard.

cm2187• 1 month ago

Plus if AI is indeed a bubble, investors are already up to the neck in it. Think of all the key stocks of the S&P and Nasdaq that are lifted by AI: nvidia, microsoft, amazon, oracle, micron, intel, amd, etc. And add their lenders and the whole datacenter supply chain.

anotherhue• 1 month ago

What exactly can an individual do? For many their accounts have limited fund choices and if you don't want to pay high ER for fund manager's pedicures then you end up on an index, which (S&P500 excluded) have now bent the knee. Mine are on russel indexes so I have no choice.

Short spacex is the only answer I've heard but I'm wise enough to know I don't have the mentality for derivatives.

_--__--__• 1 month ago

The vast majority of American employees are not maxing out every tax advantaged retirement account instrument, and putting everything in a 401(k) past the employer match level is not advisable exactly because of the limited investment choices.

bdangubic• 1 month ago

except if you self-employed. I have maxed the shit out of my 401k (i401k, self-managed) and after 3 decade career have more saved than I can spend in 8 lifetimes

HWR_143• 1 month ago

Shorting SpaceX when you own the same amount of SpaceX in an ETF doesn't require any derivatives and is a fairly safe play. The amount of interest you have to pay will vary a little bit, but it should cost a very small amount net.

The biggest issues are the effort and tax implications of balancing the SpaceX short.

whiplash451• 1 month ago

You can buy the companies making up the index instead of the index itself.

It was proven to be a good strategy on the SP500 [1, 2]

With 500 companies, it's work. But you can probably approximate it with a top 100.

[1] https://rodneywhitecenter.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploa...

[2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0015198X.2023.2...

glimshe• 1 month ago

This isn't investment advice etc etc but there are many options that can capture large sections of the stock market without being exposed to the tech bubble (assuming there is one).

Many people say you should stay invested in the SP500 anyway and I won't argue against that. But funds like VTV, DGRO, VIG, SCHD etc don't have the same level of exposure to tech, as well as international funds like VEA. Many 401ks allow you to invest in them through brokerage "link" options. Of course, do your research or talk to a pro before considering these.

Terr_• 1 month ago

exposed to the tech bubble

Aside, I think many people forget to account for their own job/career when thinking about diversification.

Just working "in tech" means that industry is already an oversized part of my financial future by default, even before talking about investment stuff.

fortran77• 1 month ago

You can opt to put some or all of your 401K into a "Value fund"

VVIAX (Vanguard) or FLCOX (Fidelity)

to reduce your exposure to the highest of high-flying stocks.

Of course, many small company 401Ks limit your investment options to a small family of high expense ratio funds...

sfblah• 1 month ago

Unfortunately most people won't do that, either from ignorance or fear of missing out. Sometime in the next few years the chickens are going to come home to roost on the infinibubble, and I'm not really sure if the US financial system will weather it.

eagerpace• 1 month ago

The recent AI craze is really just LLMs. I feel like finance was likely already the most AI-adopted industry without LLMs and their impact the last few years may have taken them from “80 to 100” where most industries are going “10 to 50.” Go back to 2022 for a moment and I think this article is identical.

ggm• 1 month ago

An interesting variant of "privatise the profits, socialise the losses" played wholly in the private sector capital investment space. "When you're rich they let you" is big in this because a functional board of a company about to be vested with a massive debt overhang from a serial offender (X and xAI) would surely have said "could we NOT" about this and the whole model including A and B class voting shares suggests this is a control issue: given proper control models none of this could happen.

richwater3• 1 month ago

The SP500 (the index the article is using for their example) literally requires profitability. Tesla wasn't includes for years and years because of it.

rayiner4• 1 month ago

If SpaceX succeeds, the gains will go to the same people who will bear the losses if it doesn’t. Both the gains and losses are privatized.

The consumer/ad tech bias of HN is really showing. The app I use to share photos of my kids with my elderly relatives is worth $1.45 trillion, but somehow companies that make freaking EVs, robots, and rocket ships, and AI can’t possibly be worth that much? I’ve been in HN for 16 years and heard so much breathless cheerleading for web apps “changing the world” but now we have companies that really might change the world and it’s a scam?

drawnwren• 1 month ago

But if SpaceX does anything _other than become the most valuable company in history by delivering at least two technologies predicated on the largest stock rise in history based on a single technology (LLMs)_, the gains from zero to now will have been privatized and the losses will be born by the public. Which is what everyone is thinking about.

sensanaty• 1 month ago

The difference being, of course, that the photo app actually earns a profit, whereas the "EVs, robots and rocket ships" and ESPECIALLY the AI so far do not, and most likely will not any time soon.

wasabi991011• 1 month ago

but somehow companies that make freaking EVs, robots, and rocket ships, and AI can’t possibly be worth that much?

The sky-high valuation of SpaceX is almost entirely related to it's estimated TAM from AI entreprise solutions, not robots and rocketships. HN news comments have a similar bias against the sky-high valuations of OpenAI and Anthropic.

asdff• 1 month ago

There is no moat around what they are doing really and they have competitors in all these sectors. All it takes is another administration to come in with a brain and a spine to not just hand contract blindly to Elon.

saagarjha• 1 month ago

There are a lot more consumers in the world willing to use the photo app than entities that do rocket launches. This isn't to say that it is changing the world more, it's just that it makes more money. That's how capitalism is set up right now.

danny_codes2• 1 month ago

I'm not sure I understand. The cynical analysis is that SpaceX insiders are dumping on retail at a high valuation. They know the valuation is ridiculous, but are relying on "dumb" retail (think wallstreetbeets level of gambling) and "forced" retail (your 401k) to create artificial demand so the valuation doesn't collapse until the insiders have sold.

The cynical part (that they know the valuation is ridiculous) is supported by the structure of the IPO. A 4% float with a, what, 30% retail component is unheard of. NASDAQ QQQ admission rule-change is also unheard of. If SpaceX insiders actually thought their company was worth $2T or whatever, why make this highly suspicious changes?

This is irrespective of whether or not SpaceX will eventually be worth more. It definitely could be. But when you look at this IPO, you can't help but catch a smell that something fishy is going on.

testaburger• 1 month ago

Is spaceX absolutely vital for the US national security through Starlink as well as the launch of military satellites? Yes, and as a matter of fact this is also true for NATO allies, Japan, Taiwan, SK, etc in any future conflict for at least the next 5 to 10 years, just as it has been for the past 4 years in Ukraine. In addition to land based infrastructure that can be targeted in any future war -undersea cables are now under constant threat around the world (Baltic Sea, Straight of Hormuz, Red Sea, South China Sea, and the Taiwan Straight, etc). Which leaves Starlink as the last resort option should shit hit the fan.

Note the tide has changed considerably in the Ukraine war in Ukraine's favor once Starlink locked down access - this proves how vital internet access it was to both sides, as once Russia could no longer use stolen terminals their manpower advantage became moot.

So I simply don't get this manufactured outrage - the vast majority of US retirement savings are already tied to the military sector (RTX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman) via index funds. I personally would have more concern with those laggards in the new age of drone warfare vs the likes of SpaceX and Anduril (when they ipo).

lokar2• 1 month ago

It’s the absurd governance and obvious manipulation of inclusion rules and limited float.

awesome_dude2• 1 month ago

Is it *vital*

No.

It's really helpful, but it's not vital.

WRT Ukraine - the drones are now (AIUI) flown with a tethered fibre connection (inside the Ukraine) - because jammers have made radio traffic with drones near impossible for operators

gedy• 1 month ago

the vast majority of US retirement savings are already tied to the military sector (RTX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman) via index funds

I don't hear any concern about SpaceX due to military ties, it's that it seems like financial tricks are being used and forcing it into the markets and it might be seriously unstable.

nradov7• 1 month ago

The US national security depends far more on the separate but related Starshield constellation than on Starlink. Your general point is correct though in that widespread use of high-bandwidth, low-latency satellite communications has caused another revolution in military affairs on the same level as GPS and precision guided munitions. SpaceX might be overvalued but politically it's too big to fail.

overfeed2• 1 month ago

the Ukraine war in Ukraine's favor once starlink locked down access

I think this is coincidental correlation. In the same period drone warfare was evolving until it reached some stalemate with an optic-fiber strewn killzone where none of the belligerents have an upper hand, and Ukraine's ballistic missile industry picked up pace, allowing Ukraine to hit far into Russia without relying on American long-range munitions, or needing American permission to use those munitions.

shimman• 1 month ago

If SpaceX is vital then we need to nationalize the company and have it under democratic control, not under a dictatorship of one.

LastTrain• 1 month ago

If it is vital then that is a national security concern that it is under the control of a single person.

aftbit2• 1 month ago

SpaceX is not "vital" for national security. It's a powerful tool, but it's not vital. And in any true peer conflict involving the US, Starlink satellites would also prove vulnerable just like undersea cables.

mylifeandtimes• 1 month ago

So let's assume you are right.

Does that justify the price?

Spacex price/sales: 100x-130x

RTX Corporation's (formerly Raytheon Technologies) Price-to-Sales (P/S) ratio currently hovers around 2.74 to 2.76. Boeing price-to-sales (P/S) ratio sits at 1.86, Lockheed Martin's (LMT) trailing twelve-month (TTM) price-to-sales (P/S) ratio sits at 1.64. Northrop Grumman's current Trailing Twelve Month (TTM) price-to-sales (P/S) ratio sits at approximately 1.76 to 1.89

So based on the peer comps you provided, SpaceX is overvalued by 50-100x. Your $185 shares are worth about $2.

Fine if you want to take that bet. Not fine if you force (via indexing) the majority of US pension savings to take that bet.

tw04• 1 month ago

So what you’re trying to imply is they have leverage to hold the US public hostage both via military contracts and retirement savings, and nobody should be concerned?

Their current valuation makes absolutely no sense given the size of their business and the next century of business unless they’re going to pull the rug on the US and its allies and increase costs 100x.

numpad0• 1 month ago

Doesn't it feel like Falcon 9 is destined to be spun off so that adults can take care of it, and then X Corp is to be allowed to consolidate freely for a quick and easy disposal?

diydsp• 1 month ago

Vast majority?

The combined market cap of those four companies is maybe $500-600 billion combined. The total S&P 500 market cap is roughly $45-50 trillion.

So defense contractors represent maybe 1-1.5% of a typical index fund portfolio.

danny_codes2• 1 month ago

The vast majority of US retirement savings are already tied to the military sector

The defense sector is 2% of the stock market. So if by majority you mean 2%, then that's a reasonable statement.

4fterd4rk• 1 month ago

SpaceX has not been added to the S&P 500. They asked for the rules to be waived. S&P said no. I don't understand this article.

Retric6• 1 month ago

S&P 500 didn’t change their rules but other indexes have.

https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/docs/2026_May_NDX_Changes_FAQ....

Q: What is the purpose of modifying the liquidity and seasoning requirements? Could this change result in the inclusion of illiquid securities in the index?

A: Most indexes require a liquidity threshold for new constituents, often as a minimum share count or average daily trading value. For the Nasdaq-100®, securities must have a three-month average daily traded value of at least $5 million. Since only very large companies – typically with full market capitalizations over $100 billion as of March 2026 – would have qualified for fast entry, they are expected to easily and quickly meet this requirement. However, an average daily traded value of at least $5 million from the time of listing will still be required for fast entry candidates. Many indexes have included seasoning requirements to ensure that traditional IPOs undergo price discovery and stabilization before being included. These requirements were originally intended to prevent small or little-known companies from entering too soon. However, there is now a trend toward IPOs being larger and more mature than in the past. Companies expected to meet the fast entry threshold are likely to be among the world’s most significant and well-known firms. High investor interest and trading volumes should accelerate price discovery, further supporting a shorter seasoning period. Note that the seasoning period for companies outside of the Top 40 remains at three months.

Several indexes have changed not just Nasdaq, but it’s one more people have heard about.

loeg4• 1 month ago

Nasdaq isn't super relevant.

reactordev• 1 month ago

Firms or funds, don’t care, want to put money in anyway…

electriclove2• 1 month ago

Rage bait article or the author is just misinformed

groundzeros2015• 1 month ago

Less informed journalists heard about it after we did and then decided to publish what they learned on twitter.

lokar2• 1 month ago

CRSP publishes the index used by VTI. They changed their rules to lower the float requirement.

darth_avocado2• 1 month ago

S&P 500 has not therefore the index funds tracking it are not going to put money on it. But nasdaq has, that means the ETFs tracking are pouring money into spcx. On top of that, all 401k target funds are total market funds, that track all of the market regardless of what the indices do. They own trillions in capital from people’s retirement, and by their own investment rules, a listing with that kind of market cap forces a bunch of money to flow into the company.

adam_arthur• 1 month ago

Half of the companies in the S&P 500 are trading at over 10x sales.

SpaceX is just another one on top of the pile, whenever it gets included.

Valuation multiples always mean revert on a long enough timeline... you can position for it today if you care to.

https://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-price-to-sales

dehrmann2• 1 month ago

Matt Levine's take was essentially that if you're in the index fund game, you want the market. You don't pick and choose what parts of the market you want--that's active management. SPCX mostly isn't an issue because most indices include the float in the weight, so it isn't really even a $1T company.

skizm• 1 month ago

To the same point I also don't want the index itself picking and choosing which companies to apply which rules to.

Zigurd• 1 month ago

Except they did pick and choose SPCX and did special favors by giving them a multiplier on the float and an exceedingly short interval before including it in indices.

sethops1• 1 month ago

Okay then why is SPCX going to be weighted 3x its actual float in the Nasdaq? A rule made just for SPCX.

breatheoften• 1 month ago

That's absolutely insane -- how the hell did anyone think that was a good idea under these circumstances ... This is an absolute scam -- why does it make sense for an index's buying volume requirement to be based on the implied value of shares that can't even be bought or sold ...?

akkartik• 1 month ago

TIL about float for stock, thanks.

darth_avocado2• 1 month ago

The problem isn’t that you’re invested in the index. The problem is that the index decided it wanted to change its rules to include companies that are not profitable. I still remember the days when you needed to be profitable for x quarters and have a minimum amount of float to be listed in an index. That changed overnight and we all know why.

kyleee• 1 month ago

Can someone make an etf that uses the older more conservative criteria for inclusion?

electriclove2• 1 month ago

S&P 500 did not change its rules right?

w29UiIm2Xz• 1 month ago

A simpler solution to this would be to introduce new ETF tickers for changed rules. It's a breaking change -- version it.

lesuorac4• 1 month ago

Yeah but Matt Levine is wrong.

1) Index funds and ETFs are highly active.

They're just low-cost due to largely algorithmic decisions but at all of the edge cases manual _active_ decisions are made.

IIRC, in this podcast Vanguard goes into detail about all of the active decisions they do [1]. It's long because uh, they do a lot.

2) You're in the index fund game because "you liked that index". There are literally thousands of ETFs. Saying "you want the market" is just wrong, you wanted a specific slice of the market and if the ETF changes the slice under you then that feels like a bait and switch.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQVz_VGJNnY

tlogan• 1 month ago

I have a feeling the article and the comments on this trend would be very different if Elon Musk did not support Trump, even if he were still just as crazy and rich.

amanaplanacanal• 1 month ago

Regardless of what you think of his politics, SpaceX is waaaay overvalued.

undersuit• 1 month ago

Just a year ago the two were feuding. They're both lying conman with nothing to contribute.

"Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!"

petilon2• 1 month ago

SpaceX is being valued as an AI company and yet they don't have a frontier AI model. Goldman Sachs is predicting 100x growth in 4 years for xAI, but it is a failed company with no frontier model. Top employees have left, and the company is renting out datacenter capacity.

Satellite launch business has $4.1 billion in revenue, but only growing 8% annually. Most of the revenue is from Starlink. It has $11.4 billion in revenue, with around 50% growth. Blue Origin will offer them competition soon.

X, formerly Twitter, has around $2B revenue, limited potential.

The massive 2030 projections ($474B total, $144B Starlink, $322B AI) are Goldman Sachs' IPO roadshow model. The projections are so aggressive they feel scammy.

SpaceX's 2025 revenue is $18.7 billion. A typical premium valuation for a top-tier tech company might be around 10x to 14x revenue, which would imply a strong IPO valuation of roughly $187 billion to $262 billion.

The reason for the outlandish valuation is because of naive retail investors who believe Elon Musk has never failed at anything.

burnerRhodov33• 1 month ago

2025 revenue, $18.7B. 2026 revenue is going to be ~$60B+ with the neocloud deals. Profit margins are going to be around 60%. 300% growth in a year and improving profit margins from a negative number to a $40B in profit in one year is... wild.

Plus, terafab and merging with Tesla is a pretty big forward looking narrative.

Arbing tokens instead of selling them to the consumer turned out the be the better business model. Turns out you don't need to have a frontier model and is actually the worse business model and letting everyone else burn the energy to compete.

petilon2• 1 month ago

Neocloud is a low margin business. SpaceX has no advantage over competitors such as Oracle, Microsoft, AWS and others. Renting out hardware purchased from Nvidia will give them 15% profit margin. Terafab does not have any advantage over TSMC. TSMC has massive economy of scale and mature supply chain.

In short, there is nothing to explain the massive overpricing of SpaceX stock, it will come down to earth at some point. Don't be left holding the bag at that point.

t1234s• 1 month ago

Expect more of this type of crap in the media now that SPCX is public. The guardian is notoriously anti-Musk and used to mention him by name in the article footer begging for money.

awinter-py• 1 month ago

yes I am concerned about my downside puts

keernan6• 1 month ago

I have to say it is incredibly annoying that the wealthiest man in the world is so thin skinned that every post on Hacker News that talks about him in ways he doesn't like gets flagged.

Of course Musk isn't doing it himself. He already bought Twitter so he could control what is said about him. And, as the wealthiest man in the world, he'd be stupid if he hasn't hired tens of thousands of people to monitor posts about him or his concerns and to downvote them (or whatever he wants). The cost to him for doing that would be similar to us spending ten cents.

Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

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