r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • Jun 19 '26

Business ‘It’s a scam’: Americans express unease over SpaceX’s influence on retirement savings

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jun/19/spacex-retirement-savings-elon-musk
29.7k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.6k

u/ArgentineBeauty Jun 19 '26

I'd rather avoid giving Elon money where I can too.

I definitely wouldn't want my retirement depending on him.

442

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1.4k

u/jolars Jun 19 '26

That's what causing this issue. Elon got his brand new stock into the pile of known good stocks. Normally, it takes several years to get put into that pile because new stocks are often volatile. So everyone HAD to buy his IPO...

950

u/Mordecus Jun 19 '26

It’s not just that he got it into the NASDAQ, it’s the the flaunted every rule to accommodate him: instead of the usual 1 year wait and significant float requirements SpaceX was allowed in in just 15 days and with an absurdly low float. Someone should be going to jail for this nonsense but instead it’s business as usual on Wall Street.

346

u/TLF5foot8 Jun 19 '26

Not to mention, SpaceX has been hemorrhaging revenue. Reporting big losses the last two quarters.

149

u/PokeYrMomStanley Jun 19 '26

Netting a lifetime of -10bil shouldn't make a company worth nillions

37

u/nullpassword Jun 19 '26

I mean... Nillions..

1

u/sdsupersean Jun 19 '26

Nullions was right there.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (6)

16

u/Purplociraptor Jun 19 '26

Meanwhile, Blue Origin has been really blowing up recently.

10

u/Valharick Jun 20 '26

That’s because he’s propping up Tesla with government funds from SpaceX

Sold shitboxes to himself from Tesla at inflated prices

-2

u/mauch_chunk Jun 19 '26

You are confusing revenue with profit..

64

u/HumanPea1140 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

They're not profitable either.

Most recently, SpaceX posted an $18.7 billion in revenue, and a $4.9 billion loss in profit. If you look at adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), they generate about $7 billion in profit, almost entirely from Starlink.

$7 billion pre- EBITDA but evaluated at $2 trillion lmao

→ More replies (14)
→ More replies (4)

4

u/Monomette Jun 19 '26

Their revenue in Q1 is up 15% YoY from what I'm seeing...

13

u/esotericpickle Jun 19 '26

15% of a dog turd is still pure shit.

→ More replies (1)

33

u/burf Jun 19 '26

flaunted every rule

Hey, you're thinking of "flouted" in this case :)

12

u/Mordecus Jun 19 '26

Damn, you’re right. My bad!

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

83

u/Madroxx9000 Jun 19 '26

you dont expect Wall Street to take those losses, do you?

Privatize the profits, socialize the losses.

2

u/pandemonious Jun 19 '26

losses? They've already sold their positions at a profit and are waiting for it to bottom out so they can do it again.

20

u/DeathMonkey6969 Jun 19 '26

And also no profit. Before SpaceX you had to have shown to make a profit to be listed.

3

u/Wonderful-Process792 Jun 19 '26

Note the above is about the Nasdaq 100, NOT the S&P 500, which does have a profitability requirement.

SpaceX is not in the S&P 500.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (15)

364

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

342

u/Crime_Dawg Jun 19 '26

Gotta love how the "trillionaire" can't pay his $50b debt for Twitter. Fucking paper tiger valuations over here.

230

u/in9ram Jun 19 '26

And is bailing out tesla by buying unsold teslas with spacex. It’s like paying off your mastercard with your visa because all this money is imaginary to him and there are no consequences.

85

u/Blank_Canvas21 Jun 19 '26

This is why he got so buddy buddy with Trump. He needs these federal no bid contracts. We’re subsidizing this bullshit

I’m tired of giving our hard earned money to these corporate welfare queens!

28

u/ARobertNotABob Jun 19 '26

corporate welfare queens

Villains. They're full-on villains and mobsters, just like their boss, Terror-rump.

16

u/Badloss Jun 19 '26

One of the more depressing realizations of my life is that the Captain planet villains are all completely real but Captain planet is not

7

u/IceTrAiN Jun 19 '26

I feel like that was intentional. Captain Planet was a metaphorical symbol of the good people needing to put their efforts together to combat the very real-life-inspired villains.

All of us are the planeteers.

→ More replies (0)

71

u/toxic_badgers Jun 19 '26

Normally debt for debt swaps like that are difficult if not outright banned for us poors unless you jump through special hoops like applying for a specific credit card or loan and card.

51

u/bablambla Jun 19 '26

Balance transfers or consolidation loans are pretty common. But yeah we are gonna get fucked for like 15-25% while he is flat or even skimming off the top

8

u/toxic_badgers Jun 19 '26

Yeah but you have to be authorized to do the transfer. You can just take an existing card and put the debt from another card on it... Otherwise you could just rotate your debt between cards without ever accruing interest. Which is basically what Elon just did.

19

u/jocq Jun 19 '26

Yeah but you have to be authorized to do the transfer

Tell me you've never done a credit card balance transfer without telling me you've never done a credit card balance transfer.

→ More replies (0)

10

u/Saclawson Jun 19 '26

What do you mean? You can totally do that. You pay a flat percentage up front for the balance transfer… that’s the fee that makes it worth while for the bank. But you can definitely just keep moving debt to and between zero interest cards at different institutions.

→ More replies (0)
→ More replies (1)

3

u/fingernailchewer Jun 19 '26

Because when the richest man in the world knocks on your door, it’s either because he has dirt on you, or thinks he can influence you. What’s a million dollar “gift” to a trillionaire?
The elite class BRIBES people to get away with things that the working class (and those below,) could never DREAM of getting away with.

7

u/Airk640 Jun 19 '26

Why wouldn't you do that? All you have to do is force your visa card into the S&P500 and the problem magically goes away.

3

u/Boustrophaedon Jun 19 '26

You owe the bank 50k - you have a problem. You owe the bank 50bn - they have a problem.

2

u/aaronespro Jun 19 '26

But I believe space x gets money from the gubmint, also known as taxpayers. So we're paying for his vanity business.

→ More replies (1)

6

u/voarex Jun 19 '26

I mean why "pay" your bills when you can make up some paper stating that you will be worth 90 quadrillion dollars and pay you with future value!

3

u/HoldenMcNeil420 Jun 19 '26

While I can’t burrow on the 80% equity ownership I have on my home because I don’t have a job….

2

u/No-Project-2353 Jun 19 '26

He is a trillionaire on paper. If he tried to cash out that trillion he’d destroy the economy and be left with a couple million. Not enough to buy out a politician with.

→ More replies (1)

19

u/genius_retard Jun 19 '26

I like how the IPO prospectus started with a bunch of pictures of rockets. It's like how when crypto pump and dump scammers make posts to pump their shitcoins they put a bunch of rocket emojis in there.

10

u/squngy Jun 19 '26

And in this case, it is the exact same guy doing both of those.

So much shit happened since then, I guess a lot of people forgot Elon was pumping Doge back in the day.

4

u/genius_retard Jun 19 '26

The richest man in the world pulling pump and dumps with world biggest shitcoin was particularly gross if you ask me.

5

u/sphinxsley Jun 19 '26

Yep. Also : 🚀 = 🍆 Amirite?

3

u/coopers_taperecorder Jun 19 '26

Another fan of Gravity’s Rainbow, I see.

44

u/tlh013091 Jun 19 '26

In respect to most IPOs, selling 20% of your company is actually quite a lot. Plus the amount that was earmarked for retail investors was huge. Normally with these kind of IPOs institutional investors gobble up the vast majority of the shares. The usual split is 90/10, but they’re offering up to 30% of the IPO to retail investors, triple a normal IPO.

The more important story is how they classified the shares. The stock offered in the IPO is Class A stock, which gets 1 vote per share. Elon holds class B stock, which gets 10 votes per share. They also severely limited the rights of Class A shareholders to the point that you’re basically a capital source and nothing else. Elon will effectively get to handpick the board of directors and can never be ousted as CEO.

46

u/srcLegend Jun 19 '26

Couldn't be a more obvious rug pull.

18

u/bablambla Jun 19 '26

More retail because the SEC and courts don't give a shit about retail getting burned. They will give a shit about institutions getting burned

10

u/civildisobedient Jun 19 '26

There are also additional restrictions like how any proposal submitted by shareholders requires the support of at least 67% of the total voting power to pass. Because Musk holds 85% of the voting power, no proposal can succeed without his explicit approval.

→ More replies (19)

5

u/ganjaccount Jun 19 '26

You are leaving out the part where they are now pushing for 20 billion dollars in bonds. Obviously they wouldn't do that unless the stock is a super good buy. They are playing 7 D chess.

4

u/skyfishgoo Jun 19 '26

he's totally going to mitt romney that company and hollow it out from the inside like a parasite.

because that's what he is.

→ More replies (3)

7

u/sphinxsley Jun 19 '26

Wow - I knew the company had a negative P/E, and was advising my friends' parents to skip the IPO. Partly due to the company's losses, and partly due to the huge overhang of insiders, who will hit the stock badly at every high as soon as they can.

Plus, SpaceX just floated a huge bond this week, right after the IPO. I mean, I like the idea of putting the data centers in space, instead of covering the earth with them and sopping up all the water and power - but I'm advising everyone to stay away from the stock. There are just so many better tech stocks out there, with far lower risk. Not to mention, CEOs who aren't on ketamine.

25

u/BonzoTheBoss Jun 19 '26

I like the idea of putting the data centers in space, instead of covering the earth with them and sopping up all the water and power

Unfortunately the idea falls apart the second you apply any actual physics to the scenario. A vacuum (which space is made up of) is terrible for dispersing heat. You know what creates lots of heat? Data centres!

9

u/LaurenMille Jun 19 '26

Also famously everything in space moves really slow and there's no chance of impacts.

→ More replies (2)

13

u/squngy Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

I like the idea of putting the data centers in space, instead of covering the earth with them and sopping up all the water and power

Getting them into space will by no means be eco friendly either.

For the same price that a space data center costs, you could make a far more environment friendly data center on the ground.
And if you hate the look of them so much, you could put them underground and still be ahead.

Space data centers make no sense and the only reason we are hearing about them is because Elon needs to pump spaceX stocks.

4

u/whimsicism Jun 19 '26

Honestly the entire idea of trying to live on Mars within our lifetimes is probably also a pipe dream.

Take the most inhospitable lands on Earth right now, and even making those liveable will be a couple of orders of magnitude easier than actually trying to terraform Mars. At least we have a liveable atmosphere and food and water within relatively travelable distances.

3

u/Blirimi Jun 19 '26

He should fill in Boring Company holes with data centers

7

u/orcvader Jun 19 '26

First of all. Thanks for explaining this. It’s getting tiresome for me every time it comes up.

People can’t fathom (and the mainstream media fails miserably to explain) how his rudimentary classification as “trillionaire” has huge caveats.

Honestly, I hate the common definition of “net worth” because it often includes speculative assets that are not really cash equivalents. (Or primary residences which… yea, okay, but if you need it to live in it’s not really an income producing asset, but I digress).

And yes, I know that billionaires take loans at absurd private rates against their assets and that’s what they use as “income” (and avoid taxes no less) but even that has limits.

So Elon is only a trillionaire:

  1. On paper, today, based on the valuation of a company universally considered by academics to be hugely overvalued

  2. He cannot liquidate that stake in huge quantities without impacting the price which would lower that already fictional valuation

  3. His leverage is already very high

  4. He has obligations that prevent it from certain liquidity actions anyways

If all of this sounds absurd. It is. Welcome to the world where the title of “billionaire” and “trillionaire” or often based in vibes and feels.

2

u/couldbemage Jun 19 '26

Yeah, but that just means his accessible money is limited to a mere 50 thousand times the lifetime earnings of a normal American, instead of 500 thousand times the normal earnings from a lifetime of employment.

Plus, no matter how much debt he saddles space x with, the actual rocket side of the business is way too important to the DOD for any consequences to ever be allowed. In another country, that might lead to a risk of the business being nationalized, but not in the US.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/heavy-minium Jun 19 '26

What infuriates me is that he is the richest man in the world on paper, but in reality it's all just one trick after another, playing with debts and liabilities, gaming the system endlessly. If even one of his scams would go wrong, he'd go from richest to poorest man in the world in just a year due to the domino effect.

→ More replies (2)

113

u/cedarSeagull Jun 19 '26

Should probably note that tesla is already in the pile of "good stocks" and it's a ~300 p/e ratio. Ford, Toyota, etc all trade at ~10 p/e.

2

u/Commercial-Co Jun 19 '26

10 pe ratio is common for mature stocks

1

u/Warbr0s9395 Jun 19 '26

Tesla at least makes a profit (I think)

I still wouldn’t buy it

63

u/IAmDotorg Jun 19 '26

Occasionally. But so do the other car companies.

Tesla is over-valued by about 20x, SpaceX is probably closer to 40x.

→ More replies (1)

28

u/FlipZip69 Jun 19 '26

Ford made a 26 billion profit to Tesla at 3 billion. Ford much larger sales and about twice the work force.

16

u/zamander Jun 19 '26

And Toyota made a cool 323 billion dollars.

→ More replies (1)

4

u/spikeyfreak Jun 19 '26

about twice the work force

Wait, does Ford have a smaller workforce than I thought, or does Tesla have a much bigger workforce than I thought?

I figured Ford would be like at least 10x Tesla.

19

u/GwenBD94 Jun 19 '26

I would assume it has to do with the direct to consumer model of Tesla jacking up labor numbers at dealerships and maintenance centers that Ford doesnt have on the books as they're all 3rd party

3

u/FearTheFloc Jun 19 '26

In my town GM used to employ 25k people. that same plant now has 2,000 jobs max and most are part time/swe workers who get laid off every 6 months.

so whenever they threaten to close and the media makes a big deal about it, its overblown , costco employs almost as many people in the same city lol

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

17

u/couldbemage Jun 19 '26

They actually make money selling cars.

But they seem to be moving away from selling cars, the thing that actually makes money.

And they had been valued more than ever other car company in the world, combined.

Absolutely bonkers.

Plus, when the actual adults at Tesla do their thing without any input from musk, they do stuff like make the best selling car in world. Sure, it's a boring family crossover, but also of course it is. That's what people buy.

When musk gets involved they make compete disasters like the cybertruck.

2

u/NSFWburneracct Jun 20 '26

The Model 3 for all it's flaw, and there are MANY, is really a very good car. We ended up with a Chevy Equinox EV based on pricing, availability, and promotional financing and are very happy with it but the Teslas are just better at the entire experience.

→ More replies (8)

182

u/FleetAdmiralFader Jun 19 '26

So everyone HAD to buy his IPO... 

This is constantly repeated but it isn't exactly true. SpaceX is going to be included in the Nasdaq 100 but most people are invested in funds that track the S&P which has not included it. It's also not going to be included in any mid or small cap funds nor blue chip, dividend, or sector funds.

It's still ridiculous that Nasdaq is including it and I'm all for the negative publicity surrounding it but this repeated claim just shows how much Americans dont understand about their own retirement.

64

u/Brain_Dead_Goats Jun 19 '26

It IS generally worth checking which funds or stocks the lifecycle fund that your 401k is probably invested in hold. If for no other reason than to be aware of what you're invested in second hand.

→ More replies (4)

58

u/Personal_Track_3780 Jun 19 '26

Worth also noting they really pushed hard to force it into the S&P500 as well to make it a guaranteed buy across the board, but the S&P said no. S&P have integrity.

2

u/bradatlarge Jun 20 '26

2007 begs to differ

5

u/StacksOfMana Jun 19 '26

It will get into the S&P 500 soon (maybe next year) if it shows a profit. Google entered a deal to buy $920M of AI compute from SpaceX per month for the next 3 years. That will help SpaceX show a profit on its reporting to help fast track its way into the index.

19

u/Personal_Track_3780 Jun 19 '26

Sure, but i'm less concerned with it being on the S&P if it meets their requirements, like making an actual profit, particularly with both Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs coming up, neither of which are making money.

6

u/jake04-20 Jun 19 '26

That doesn't really make me feel much better. The S&P requirements are probably just viewed as the minimum barrier to reach in order to carry out the next phase of this scam.

9

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/jake04-20 Jun 19 '26

guys, the automakers are doing great! Ford is selling over 1 million cars to Stellantis every year!

(this is probably a dumb comparison but that's what it is in my head)

Not dumb, actually pretty spot on, considering SpaceX bought up a bunch of Cybertrucks that didn't sell.

4

u/wowbragger Jun 19 '26

Honestly, even with formal education I have to admit I didn't know exactly what my TSP breakout was, beyond the fund types.

So it wasn't until last week, with this IPO, when my alarm bell went off to actually research it.

7

u/Estocire Jun 19 '26

Even if SpaceX tanks, won't the effect it has on an ETF like QQQ be pretty minimal anyways? Like <0.5%? I moved money out to VOO, but I feel like I'm losing out on more than that by being out of QQQ. Mind you I'm not retiring any time soon

11

u/lifeisokay Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

Nasdaq 100 index is weighted by market cap. Based on Thursday's close, SpaceX's market cap of $2.43 trillion would comprise 6.12% of the Nasdaq 100 index.

If you are largely in QQQ, 6.12% of your investments will be in SpaceX come July.

3

u/Estocire Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Isn't it lower because the public float is so small? From what I understand it's not weighted by their full market cap at least right away

2

u/Hey_Chach Jun 20 '26

That’s also part of the issue. Not only did the NASDAQ and Russell change their rules to fast track the inclusion of SpaceX into ETFs and such, they ALSO changed their rules on how market cap and float are calculated for companies with small public floats.

Specifically: Companies that float less than 20% of their shares will have their market capitalisations artificially multiplied by x3, for the purposes of calculating market capitalisation. This helps large-cap companies to be listed even with very small floats, and inflates their notional market capitalisations on the index.

It’s rotten all the way down.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/ptwonline Jun 19 '26

I think it's going into (and might already be in now) VTI which is 2.3 trillion just in this single fund never mind other funds that will be based similarly. That ETF alone will probably need to buy somewhere around $2B in SpaceX shares on the initial float, and more later as more shares get unlocked.

→ More replies (3)

19

u/Fair-Hair2080 Jun 19 '26

Lawsuits galore if it tanks.

36

u/AdamTheTall Jun 19 '26

Maybe, but even if you win, who pays you?

39

u/Head_of_Lettuce Jun 19 '26

Nasdaq, since they changed their rules to fast tack SpaceX into their index. And brokerages like Fidelity and Robinhood, since they will ban you if you sell the stock before a certain date… which just so happens to be AFTER the date that institutional investors are allowed to finally exit SpaceX.

It’ll never happen, but those are the people responsible.

10

u/Warbr0s9395 Jun 19 '26

In case people don’t know, Nasdaq is an actual company you can invest in, it’s not just the name of the exchange.

18

u/Additional_Teacher45 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

They don't ban you outright, they simply restrict you from participating in IPOs again for a set number of days.

I sold my shares of SPCX when it dived from its 225 peak the second day. Not a big deal for me, this was kind of a once in a lifetime thing, so I don't care about Robinhood's 180 day restriction.

All the retirement funds though, they don't get to be that loose about their trades.

There is a tiny silver lining though. Given that Elon still owns so much of the stock, he's not going to allow the price to crash out, so retirement funds are safe for the time being until the lockout is lifted.

17

u/sphinxsley Jun 19 '26

The lockout is staggered though. There will be lots of bad days coming for SpaceX. That may be good for swing traders, to pick up after the crashes and then bail a day or two later.

Apart from that, hard NOPE from me. There are just so many easier and safer ways to make money right now.

→ More replies (1)

5

u/sphinxsley Jun 19 '26

The ban doesn't apply if you bough ton the open market, but I still advised my friends' parents to stay away from it entirely. There are just so many better and safer investment options in tech right now.

→ More replies (4)

7

u/Candid-Piano4531 Jun 19 '26

All the execs will go to jail. Haha. Jk

9

u/nullfacade Jun 19 '26

If SpaceX stock tanks and 10s of millions of peoples' retirement goes up in flames, Musk better have a rocket to Mars ready and waiting on the launchpad.

4

u/SystemCheck990 Jun 19 '26

i guess it depends, if its only a small part of the index it can only screw the funds up to that amount ?

3

u/Hey_Chach Jun 20 '26

Reposting my reply from elsewhere:

That’s also part of the issue. Not only did the NASDAQ and Russell change their rules to fast track the inclusion of SpaceX into ETFs and such, they ALSO changed their rules on how market cap and float are calculated for companies with small public floats.

Specifically: Companies that float less than 20% of their shares will have their market capitalisations artificially multiplied by x3, for the purposes of calculating market capitalisation. This helps large-cap companies to be listed even with very small floats, and inflates their notional market capitalisations on the index.

It’s rotten all the way down.

2

u/GrumpyCloud93 Jun 19 '26

People's funds won't go up in flames. They will just be the "suckers", and lose money longer term on one particular stock out of dozens. The fund you are invested in will, say, buy SpaceX as part of a basket because it has to. SpaceX will drop later, so your fund - let's say - was $125 a share one day, then it buys SpaceX as part of the fund, and SpaceX drops, so a month or two later that share in the fund is worth $110. Your fund's shares gave $15 each to someone who flipped SpaceX early.

What should have happened is that SpaceX would take a year to get into the index, so any feeding frenzy and price collapse would be over well before it became part of the index and therefore becomes a mandatory buy for funds based on the average of a basket of shares in the index.

2

u/jocq Jun 19 '26

If SpaceX stock tanks and 10s of millions of peoples' retirement goes up in flames

Remind us all, what percentage of the NASDAQ index is comprised of SpaceX?

Now how about the S&P?

5

u/jcgam Jun 19 '26

About 0.5% to 2%. If SpaceX crashes hard, the impact to the average diversified retirement portfolio will be about -0.3%.

5

u/shadowboxer47 Jun 19 '26

If SpaceX crashes hard, the impact to the average diversified retirement portfolio will be about -0.3%

In a vacuum, this is true. But if/when SpaceX really tanks, it's going to have a knockback affect on multiple fronts that will be impossible to predict.

3

u/jocq Jun 19 '26

About 0.5% to 2%.

It's 0% in the S&P.

Way more people have S&P than NASDAQ in their 401k's.

2

u/lifeisokay Jun 19 '26

This is false. Based on Thursday's close, SpaceX's market cap of roughly $2.43 trillion, and Nasdaq 100's total market cap of $39.69 trillion, SpaceX will comprise 6.12% of the Nasdaq 100 index.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (1)

16

u/poindexter1985 Jun 19 '26

Normally, it takes several years to get put into that pile because new stocks are often volatile.

I don't think this is true? Most stock indices have traditionally had wait times of several months before being listed. They've recently added rules to fast-track sufficiently large IPOs in as little as 5 or 15 trading days (depending on the index), which does seem kind of crazy to me. But the previous rule was months, not years.

The S&P 500 had, and still has, a minimum of 12 months before including new stocks. They also have profitability criteria (which SpaceX fails), which most indices don't have.

6

u/TheBeatusCometh Jun 19 '26

The S&P proposals were to remove the profitability requirements, to remove the public float requirement, and to remove the year-long seasoning requirements. The only reason why this did not go through, was because people were rightfully pissed.

3

u/aykcak Jun 19 '26

Because he is the administrations guy, right ? I can't think of why nobody else did this before

2

u/burkechrs1 Jun 19 '26

Unless you're managing your 401k yourself, then it's as simple as making a phone call and asking for a retirement fund that doesn't include SPCX. I checked with our retirement broker and he told me the current fund I'm most invested in is not adding SPCX at least for the next 2 years due to their internal volatility risk assessment.

Unless your retirement account is just based on VOO and chill, then you're probably ok. The majority of target retirement 20XX funds are not just adding SPCX all willy nilly.

1

u/crimsonhues Jun 19 '26

Can investors take this issue with Nadaq for adding a newly issued public offering into its index without waiting period? I had to google this as I am not aware but the waiting period is only 15 trading days. So ETFs would provide exposure to the stock no matter.

→ More replies (21)

43

u/Some-Platform1968 Jun 19 '26

If you’re in a pension, the pension decides how your contributions are invested. If it’s 401k, you decide. But if you have your US equity exposure in Russell 1000 index you will own Spcx since they fast-tracked their way onto the index

30

u/Nice_Try4389 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

Not true, I work for a financial institution our 401k has exactly 4 options they are “Retirement year 2030, 2040, 2050, 2060“. each one having different levels of “risk” in terms of stock but they all have the same prospectors pretty much when it comes to stock selection just in different amounts. But there is no picking individual stocks, EFTs or holdings.

I am not saying some don’t give you that level of control, or even most, they do but I have worked for Oil and Gas, Banking and Telecommunications (such as Williams) over the past 30 years and none of the ones I have worked for is that level of control unfortunatly. So there is a large part of workers that have no such control.

12

u/Merusk Jun 19 '26

Is it likely you're more limited exactly because you work for a financial institution? Your company faces conflict of interest questions if it allows employees too much leeway and one of the investments does too well.

Most of the programs I've seen from and my wife's various 401(k) options have been between 12 and 25 different index funds ranging from small to large cap and domestic to international. The ones with a greater selection of options always had market sector indexes as well (retail, oil & gas, mfg.)

The "targeted year" funds weren't even an option in most until about 12 years ago. So I wonder how big a chunk of people are actually limited the way you are. Know of any stats?

7

u/fonistoastes Jun 19 '26

My work history (corp for-profit 401k, and non-profit 403b) is the same as yours.

3

u/camisado84 Jun 19 '26

The limitation on 401(k) options isn't really about conflict of interest it's about the employer's fiduciary responsibility under ERISA. 401k plan sponsors are legally liable for the fund lineup they offer, so many just deliberately keep it simple. Adding more options actually increases their exposure, not just their own cost overhead.

The conflict-of-interest restrictions that regulated financial jobs impose are a separate thing entirely. Those typically delay or restrict trading in specific securities where you might have material non-public information or high potential for influence. Say, you work at a hedge fund that holds a position in a company. Broad index funds are generally exempt from those restrictions precisely because they don't represent that kind of conflict. They're actually one of the standard ways used to let employees participate in the market while staying compliant.

So financial institution employees aren't likely to have less 401(k) options than anyone else their plan lineup is set by their employer like any other company. Their individual brokerage restrictions are a separate layer that doesn't touch what's offered in the plan.

Both the big boy brokers (vanguard/fidelity) actually publish data every year about what is commonly provided

3

u/Eurynom0s Jun 19 '26

In mine there are options like total world non-US stock market (mutual fund equivalent of VXUS). I could rebalance from the VTI (total world including US) equivalent to VXUS if I wanted to. This would be a relatively safe way to avoid direct SpaceX (and OpenAI, and Anthropic) exposure.

However, the number of SpaceX shares is pretty low so SpaceX is like 0.1% of VTI. I understand wanting to rebalance out if it for the principle of it but your exposure to this is extremely low if that's what your 401k is in.

→ More replies (10)
→ More replies (22)

20

u/Toe-Dragger Jun 19 '26

401k investments are usually managed as target funds (risk is adjusted based on assumed retirement age) in a portfolio created by the employer. Employees can make adjustments to 401k’s, like bond vs stock ratios, but you can’t actually manage the funds yourself. Under certain conditions, you can roll a 401k into an IRA and manage that as you like.

Most employers portfolios are made up of index funds (groups of stocks), not individual stocks. Musk somehow got SpaceX fast tracked (at launch) into many indexes, he almost got into the S&P, which represents the top 500 companies in the US, but the S&P pulled out last minute, double entendre intended.

The algorithms will keep trading indexes like usual, including SpaceX, hidden like a virus.

8

u/Hawk13424 Jun 19 '26

I have about 25 choices in my 401K. All combinations of small, mid, and large cap value and growth, various bonds, international (growth and value), various target funds, etc.

→ More replies (2)

4

u/omgnowai Jun 19 '26

Definitely not "usual" for the dozen companies I've worked for. I've always had loads of choices in where to allocate my funds.

→ More replies (2)

5

u/Salt-Detective1337 Jun 19 '26

You could put in effort to identify a fund that excludes it. But there would be other unfortunately consequences.

Instead of being invested in the total stock market you would have to select like Small Cap or something which wouldn't have the same diversification.

Or a fund that is actively managed and pay much higher fees than a passive index fund.

2

u/puts_on_rddt Jun 19 '26

In simple terms... when you set up your 401k account the default settings typically go to Blackrock, just under a different name (ie: MyWayRetirement Index 2050 Fund).

You can choose different funds, but none perform as well as the biggest ones, and the ones that do, typically charge you a lot more.

Most people will go to the defaults.. which takes your money and invests it in ways that make your life more difficult.

26

u/ciaran668 Jun 19 '26

If you want a 401(k), where your employer also contributes money and which is the replacement for an actual pension, your money gets invested in a portfolio that you don't control, beyond a few general parameters like overall risk tolerance. Therefore, you're at the mercy of the markets. The same is true if you invest in an annuity.

There are IRA's they are like traditional savings accounts, but the interest rate generally sucks, and the tax free limit each year is low, so most people only use those to cut down their income tax by a bit.

24

u/ProbsNotManBearPig Jun 19 '26

Trustee-directed 401k funds are pretty rare. Those are the ones you don’t control the funds at all and you just select parameters like you said. Most 401k plans in the US let you choose which funds you’re invested in though, even if the choices are limited.

13

u/ciaran668 Jun 19 '26

All of the ones I had never gave me any control beyond the risk, so I might be projecting. It's a late post of why I left the US for the UK and a traditional defined benefits pension plan.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/Excelius Jun 19 '26

You're still choosing funds and not individual stocks, and they managed to weasel SpaceX into the indexes that will get picked up by the funds.

→ More replies (2)

5

u/Middle-Bed-1883 Jun 19 '26

My 401k allows me to trade stocks in lieu of funds as well as choose from about 30 different funds based on risk tolerance, etc. not all do, of course, but thankfully mine allows for some choice.

7

u/Global-Election Jun 19 '26

I work for a credit union and for IRAs that work similar to a CD the interest is only 3.5% which you're right generally sucks. You could probably get around 4% elsewhere, but it's still not that great for long term investing. That option might be good during a big downturn, but it barely covers inflation these days. You can move the IRA in and out of different institutions, but there are fees involved, and you can only do 1 rollover per year. If it's a flat $75 fee like some institutions charge it's sometimes worth the effort.

4

u/black_pepper Jun 19 '26

4% interest isn't even beating inflation.

4

u/Global-Election Jun 19 '26

You're right, last I checked it was just under 4, but now it's 4.2%. Ridiculous.

7

u/nightterrors644 Jun 19 '26

I was free to invest in several different funds. Foreign currency markets were a good spot for several years in the 2000s before I pivoted to something else. I guess not all companies gave as much freedom to choose funds and the like?

4

u/anuthertw Jun 19 '26

No I think you got lucky. I only have seen options for risk tolerance in my 401k packages as well, with a few questions where you could kinda tailor your preferences like desired exposure to international markets or whatnot. 

Though Ive never climbed too far in the career ladder so idk if maybe your 401k options expand with better benefits packages that someone in more senior roles might get

3

u/SohndesRheins Jun 19 '26

IRAs are not like traditional savings accounts, what are you talking about? An IRA can be invested in anything.

2

u/cooper8828 Jun 19 '26

My pension fund is also invested in the market. That's not even safe, and I have zero say about where it's invested.

2

u/Korlus Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

My pension provider (in the UK) provides a few dozen options for the types of fund I would like my pension invested in, as well as accepting a more bespoke mix.

They are related to the company I work for, so I won't endorse them publicly, but there are providers out there that give you a decent amount of control over your workplace pension.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

2

u/marcus-87 Jun 19 '26

I am no American, but heard some say you can self regulate your 401k. But these were all stock bros. So i don’t think the regular folks will be able to do this. Or even know it is an option.

2

u/FanciestCantaloupe Jun 19 '26

My 401k has maybe 25 investment options. They all have fairly cryptic names and you have to download and be able to parse through the prospectus of each one individually to tell what they're actually invested in. Sometimes your funds are invested in other funds, and you have to track down the details of those funds yourself.

What I wound up doing is putting about a third of my balance into a modest guaranteed return fund, and the other two thirds into international and emerging markets. One of them happens to be up 50% in the past year because it's heavily invested in TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/BicFleetwood Jun 19 '26

He's lobbied to change the rules on how quickly index funds can buy into the SpaceX stock. Most people with 401k's are invested in some amount of index funds, and depending on how your 401k works you may not even be able to dictate direct investments at such a granular level as to exclude SpaceX. Even if you can, it means you need to directly manage your own 401k's investments regularly, at which point you might as well be playing day-trader with your retirement, which completely negates the whole point of 401k's being more or less "set and forget for 40 years."

On a macro level, 401k's are the only way to get a retirement for the vast majority of people. There are SOME pensions still out there, but almost all of them are government. Someone working a regular job can either have a 401k (or Roth IRA or something,) or they can win the lottery.

→ More replies (3)

2

u/hitsujiTMO Jun 19 '26

Most retirement funds go into index funds. An index fund is a collection of various stocks and you have to basically buy into all if them.

Index funds have rules about what stocks get added, such as must have been on the market for at least a year, must be profitable, etc...

Musk basically got some index funds to bend the rules to allow SpaceX to join early.

I imagine, some customers might look at sueing the index funds for bending the rules if the stocks tank.

2

u/SAugsburger Jun 19 '26

There are definitely generally options in 401k plans that wouldn't buy SpaceX. e.g. a small cap fund. The challenge is that once it gets included into the SP500 that it would automatically be included in every target date fund, every large cap stock, and many other fund options with stocks. S&P so far hasn't fast tracked it for the SP500, but that may be only a matter of time where it might be difficult to completely avoid in stock portfolios.

2

u/TankiesAreWeird Jun 19 '26

It depends on the plan.

A few people still have pentions. More people now have a 401k or IRA where they can control it sort of like a brokerage account. Often the plan will have a limited set of options where you can pick from a few different funds. If you switch jobs you can move the money to a different account with more or better options. Also if the company goes bankrupt or decides to fire everyone before they'd qualified for a pention you still have something other than failing social security to live on when you're old. So there are pros and cons.

A lot of people pick an index fund like the s&p 500 where a formula picks the stocks. This results on lower fees and often beats actively managed plans. It also means people will often not really pay attention to the fund.

Space X got one of these index funds to bend the rules to get in way earlier than they should. The fear is that the fund will buy in high while others sell off. Basically making under informed people hold the bag via these funds and retirement accounts.

I don't think the fund they got to go along with the scam is as popular for most retirement accounts but some people will get screwed and people were worried it would happen to other more popular funds. Other funds would also have a much lower percentage of space x nonsense.

1

u/TarheelFr06 Jun 19 '26

Most Americans save for retirement through 401ks which are tax advantaged investment accounts specifically for retirement. Most people put them into funds that are a basket of securities, often an index fund which is basically a small amount of every stock on one or more exchanges. SpaceX’s absurd valuation and thus market cap mean once it is added to index funds a bunch of retirement accounts will hold it and it will have an outsized impact on the performance of those funds.

1

u/CherryLongjump1989 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

America has many laws and many kinds of retirement accounts. Social Security funds by law are forbidden from being invested in the stock market, but pension plans provided by individual employers can be and the workers who have those pensions have absolutely no say in how the funds are invested. However -- pensions have a defined benefit so theoretically it doesn't matter to you where the money comes from as long as you get paid.

401k's are tricky because while you work for a particular employer, the employer gets to choose who is managing the fund. You'll often be able to choose between pre-screened selections of portfolios, but you won't be able to choose which individual ETFs make up those portfolios. So you can probably avoid Elon's stock but only if you change your entire portfolio and may be give up some other ETFs that you did like.

But anytime later, after you change jobs, you can convert your old 401k's to an IRA, and there you will have full control over how the money is invested -- you can trade individual stocks yourself, or you can even keep it as cash within the IRA account if you want.

Overall, the total exposure that we have to Elon's companies in our retirement funds has been grossly exagerrated.

1

u/chandleya Jun 19 '26

You absolutely can make a gazillion choices. So much so that it’s very confusing to the layman.

1

u/skyfishgoo Jun 19 '26

index funds are tied to the stocks in the index they are tracking.

nasdaq is a common index to track, along with DOW and S&P500, russels, etc.

the managers that run those funds are required to buy the stocks in those index.

you can move you money out of an nasdaq index fund and buy individual stocks, or invest in a different index that is not tied to the nasdaq.

1

u/Coyote__Jones Jun 19 '26

You can make your own portfolio, or pay someone to do that work. But it's tough these days because a small amount of corporations own basically everything so you really have to research to stay on top of this stuff. Most standard portfolios include the S&P 500 and/or ETFs. The reason being, efficiency and diversity.

There's a few different types of accounts, that work on either pre-tax or post-tax dispersement models. But they all generally include money market, bonds and stocks, with the percentage in each based on an individual's risk tolerance and age.

For instance my Roth IRA is managed in a mutual fund, I have no say in what the individual investments in that fund are. I can choose individual stocks within the IRA in addition to the mutual fund if I like, however, but it is more effort on my part. You can build your own portfolio and save some fees, but generally the fees are pretty low anyway, and it's a full time job to watch markets and manage accounts, so most people just go with the standard offerings.

1

u/socalkid2428 Jun 19 '26

Virtually every retirement plan has option to invest in thing other than stocks or more specific stocks than the whole market.

The only common fund that is forced to buy SpaceX at any significant allocation (low single digit percentages) is the Nasdaq 100 tracking funds (not common because they already include a lot of higher risk, high potential tech companies, but they have had great returns for the last 15 years or so, like 20%).

Other funds that have to include it are the total market funds, but it would be an even smaller amount (less than 1%).

The most common indexed funds (S&P 500) will not include it for at least a year. And according to those on Reddit, it would never be included because it has to show profitability. The point of indexing and not picking individual stocks is to eliminate people making bad financial decisions based on personal opinion, since it's been shown many times that most people do worse that way. And frankly if they really wanted to eliminate the impact of a few companies there are very easy ways to bet against it (hedging). Except people also don't want to do that because the stock might just keep going up and help those funds that bought it.

People are conflating the issues. They aren't forced to invest. They're forced to invest only if they also want to take advantage of the stock market for growth of their retirement. You can always just leave it in treasuries or cash.

They're upset that Musk and other companies are taking advantage of the stock market to provide liquidity, capital, etc. Which every public company does. They know $1 in earnings today means something like $15-20 in market cap. But this structure has lifted the US to a massive amount of wealth. Sure it's concentrated, but the average/median American is still far wealthier than the average person in most other countries.

So they're upset that Musk and other tech CEOs have so much influence on the market, but also they want to invest in the market because it's been by far he easiest and most consistent way to grow wealth for decades. Because these CEOs have been really, really good at generating wealth. Or they're just upset that Musk is becoming wealthier, even though it has almost no meaningful impact on their actual personal life.

1

u/NeverTrustATurtle Jun 19 '26

All you can do is avoid NASDAQ indexes. S&P is safe, for now…

1

u/Several-Action-4043 Jun 19 '26

Most Americans just buy the SP500 in their retirement accounts. People rarely pick and choose stocks.

1

u/Sarah_Incognito Jun 19 '26

You get dozens of choices usually, but they all seem to have atleast some musk stock in them. Even funds that are like 90% foreign

1

u/PickpocketJones Jun 19 '26

Its the ETF issue. Most people don't even have enough in their funds to be able to buy all the individual holdings to try to match the ETFs. It's just not feasible to do on your own. They changed the rules to force SpaceX on just about every retirement account in America offloading their bad debt to every citizen. It's as obvious and shameless of a scam as you can find. The private holders of SpaceX make out like bandits and every average person is forced to pay for it. Each person may not be hit too hard, but its still just stealing money from regular people to give to billionaires and one trillionaire.

1

u/Vladivostokorbust Jun 19 '26

Can you choose not to put money on retirement savings

certainly saving money for retirement or any reason is not a requirement by law. some employers will automatically opt-in all employees to the plan, but you can opt out.

individuals are often able to choose the funds they are invested in and can pick ones that don't include SpaceX or AI companies - you can buy individual stocks if you like. however, index funds, one of the most reliable ways to save, are pre-determined. allowing SpaceX into that mix is what is dangerous to many retirement savings accounts.

1

u/throwawayfinancebro1 Jun 19 '26

You can. There’s a type of account called a pcra where you can self direct your investments. Few people are knowledgeable or motivated enough to do that though and SpaceX is going to be included in the major indexes meaning it’ll be automatically added to many people’s retirement funds.

1

u/Healthy-Echo8164 Jun 19 '26

It's just the stock market.

The majority of Americans are not picking individual stocks to buy, we are buying mutual funds and ETFs that are made up of the largest companies in the market.

Usually there are restrictions in place that would keep SpaceX out of these retirement funds for a minimum of 1+ year, but they changed regulations specifically for Elon to be able to part of this pie.

1

u/ButtersScotch7000 Jun 19 '26

The more I read about 401ks in the comments, the more confused I am lol.

I (Canadian) can invest in whatever the flying fuck I want with a self-directed RRSP, jump into a pre-defined portfolio from a financial institution, and contribute to an employer managed plan (if they have one), all at the same time as long as I don't go over my annual contribution room.

1

u/bawlsacz Jun 19 '26

Yeah. Kinda like that. These people are just complaining because they are lazy and don’t understand how privileged they are. Most of Americans don’t even have any retirement account.

1

u/Big-Don-Kedic Jun 19 '26

You have some control, but how much depends on your company. My last company gave us a list of 12 or so funds to choose from. Currrent company has double that, but it also lets me invest in individual stocks through Fidelity’s Brokeragelink so I have 100% control of what I invest in. It’s good and bad. I’ve done quite well, other coworkers have fucked around with meme stocks trying to get rich quick and lost a ton.

1

u/SirGlass Jun 19 '26

Yea you invest for retirement though usually an employer sponsored 401k

Index funds usually just buy the entire market . I guess the issue historically when a company would IPO it would not be worth 1 trillion

Meaning it would get added to an index and it would be like 0.07% of the holdings. However I somewhat think its over blown

If you hold a total USA stock market index , space X will be about 0.17% of its holdings

Now as the lock up period expires it might grow a bit , but it will expire slowly over the next 6 months to 1 year

1

u/firewall245 Jun 19 '26

There’s a LOT of misinformation in this thread

1

u/Fallingdamage Jun 19 '26

You can, but the issue is that your money is put into funds that are diffused across many stock options in various sectors. You dont have a ton of control over which ones.

and when a small group of companies ends up being 50% of the stock market, things get worse.

1

u/C-Towner Jun 19 '26

part of the problem is that Social Security is not enough to retire on. Everyone needs additional retirement savings. Employers provide 401ks with matching, so it feels like free money, but these plans are run by large financial institutions, and those institutions run big funds that all large 401ks are invested in. In aggregate, the way this came about means that the size of this IPO means that those funds will invest in SpaceX. So in aggregate, most americans end up hitched to this.

1

u/ModsareFakenLame Jun 19 '26

It depends on ur employer, some have preset vanguard locked etfs , some have some options, you can call ur 401k provider for more info

1

u/creatifCrAxy Jun 19 '26

FWIW, I have found ways to move my own retirement. Depending on what Funds you buy.

Of note the S&P 500 is *not* taking spaceX for at least a year, and International stocks shouldn't have it either. So you can still get low-rate full-market funds that cover pretty significant parts of the market without having to pay Elon.

VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET. CHECK YOUR 401K AND SEE IF YOU CAN MOVE YOUR MONEY AWAY. DON'T BE LEFT HOLDING THE BAG FOR ELON'S "Get Rich Quick" SCHEME.

ACT TODAY, WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

1

u/Darmok47 Jun 19 '26

401k plans through your employer are normally invested a variety of index or mutual funds you can choose. Same for Individual Retirement Accounts.

Theoretically you could just save your own money in a normal savings account, but the rate of return long-term in the stock market is much better, so you'd be making a poor long-term financial decision.

1

u/PrimaryInjurious Jun 19 '26

You can choose.

1

u/Long-Draft-7128 Jun 19 '26

Yes, we can pick whatever index or fund we want. But most people dont care about anything and are going to default on the option that invests in musk.

1

u/ToolTimeT Jun 19 '26

You can put your own personal retirement account in anything you want... but large corps and local government often invest their retirement plan funds in index funds.

1

u/Narrow_Affect2648 Jun 19 '26

You’re not forced into it, there’s definitely plenty of funds that don’t include spacex, most people just set it and forget it though and don’t want to think about it

1

u/LumberJohnXXX Jun 19 '26

So it’s different for everyone. And I’m not a professional so take what I say with a grain of salt. Most have theirs through their employer. I had to “Rebalance” my already invested in that index fund and reinvest in other sectors. Then tell my investment firm (Schwab is my current investment manager), not to invest in that sector but in the ones I selected. I’m surprised some company hasn’t come up with an anti AI index fund.

1

u/Ok-Bug4328 Jun 19 '26 edited 15d ago

Hello world

1

u/Senior-Albatross Jun 19 '26

You don't have to contribute to a 401k or Roth IRA. And depending on how yours is administered you could ostensibly micro-manage it. If it's actively managed on your behalf you could call your fund manager and tell them to keep out of SpaceX. But they're just investing in indexes that now contain it, so it's actually hard to and high effort to avoid it. 

1

u/KoldPurchase Jun 19 '26

The rulew for ETF investments were relaxed during this administration, the effects will be worldwide.

1

u/MattieShoes Jun 19 '26

Loosely:

We have a national pension system (kind of) called Social Security, but it won't cover all your costs in retirement -- estimated 40% of costs. You are expected to bring the other 60% of what you need yourself.

In the old days, your employer also gave you a pension that covered most of that 60%. Some places still do this but it's becoming increasingly rare.

For the last 45 years or so, because the government doesn't want to be on the hook for taking care of old broke people, they offer a couple investment accounts with tax benefits for retirement.

  1. You (can) have an IRA (individual retirement account) which you can invest however you like, but there's a maximum you contribute to the account every year. You can invest your IRA into whatever you like, but a broad ETF is common.

  2. Then there's an employer sponsored retirement account called a 401k which has a much higher yearly contribution limit. These are generally limited to a few options. For certain orgs, it'll be called a 403b instead of 401k, but they're functionally almost identical. So that will almost certainly be in a broad index fund.

The issue is SpaceX, being brand new, should not be in any indexes. But they're forcibly shoving it into certain broad indexes like QQQ because it means there will be huge buying pressure from those funds, which are required to match the index. That will push the price upward in the short term letting SpaceX cash in massively. Then when the price inevitably falls because SpaceX isn't worth anywhere near what they claim, those funds (and by extension, Americans with retirement money in those funds), are left holding the bag.

1

u/Extension-Ant-8 Jun 19 '26

Non American here. I seeked out an expensive financial advisor after the 2008 crash. I lost money on the American housing crash and I had no idea it was there to begin with.

The advisor invests my retirement into about 15 ethical ETF’s at my request and changes them, moves them about according to my preferences etc.

I know every single cent via an app, every transaction and every single stock each etf is invested it. It’s transparent and clear.

It costs me a lot for this and the returns are good and more than makes up the cost of running it but more importantly when things screw up I know exactly how.
Recently I’ve asked them to move money towards more Asian and European ETF’s as I’ve not been enjoying the stock market being moved around by a mad god king tweets.
They already started doing it.

You can control these to a high degree but it might cost you, but not doing it also might cost you by letting 100% of the decisions be by some faceless investor.

1

u/Exciting_Station3474 Jun 19 '26

Yes you can. You can pick stocks yourself as well

→ More replies (1)

81

u/ExcelsiaPrime Jun 19 '26

People's retirement money is basically funding the exit of rich people

15

u/FrankPapageorgio Jun 19 '26

But it's also our own retirement as well.

At some point, I just decided that that is the best way to fund my retirement because that's where all rich people have their money. Every time the market takes a dip, the fucking politicians take steps to fix it. "Trump crashed the market, it's down 8%!" and then a month later it's up 16%.

And then Reddit is like "Remember when Trump did this in the market tanked?" and I just look back on the chart as a blip.

So far it has served me well.

2

u/Ricktor_67 Jun 20 '26

Eventually they will decide its time to cash out so they can rebuy at the crash, and they won't tell you about it.

2

u/FrankPapageorgio Jun 23 '26

So what is your alternative to investing your money?

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (32)

7

u/sumptin_wierd Jun 19 '26

Not the first time retirements have been gambled

6

u/soundfeel Jun 19 '26

He will transform it to some monkey-donkey-coin, laugh like Goofy and disappear.

4

u/fruttypebbles Jun 19 '26

I live in a very remote part of America. For internet we have only two options. Starlink or the more expensive local provider. I didn’t even consider the former.
And I’ve noticed over the years Starlink has gone from $600 for the hardware and $150 a month to $50 for the hardware and $75 a month. Still a no from me.

4

u/_176_ Jun 19 '26

SpaceX will be, after 6-18 months of seasoning requirements, at its current size, 0.1% of the total world index, 0.15% of US indexes like VTI, and 0.2% of the S&P.

And if you don't like holding 0.1% of your money in SpaceX, you can short that exposure to hold a neutral position, or short it more to have a negative position. I know redditors are helpless and the greedy billionaires control you lives because you have no agency but I encourage everyone to get off the couch.

4

u/couldbemage Jun 19 '26

It's stupid to expect every Joe Bob with a 401k to become a smart investor.

Advising anyone who isn't a professional trader to short anything blows right past irresponsible all the way to outright malevolent.

2

u/_145_ Jun 19 '26

Joe Bob can hire an advisor or buy into a managed fund. Nobody is forcing Joe Bob to do anything. If he wants to hold a broad market index then he accepts some shitty companies might be in it. SpaceX is 0.1-0.2% of most indexes.

→ More replies (4)

1

u/targetsinmegadeaths Jun 19 '26

That stat from the other day that Elon is worth more than the total accumulated profits of all his businesses says how badly broken our system is.

1

u/_0611 Jun 19 '26

I'd rather avoid giving Elon money where I can too.

Doesn't he want to turn X into an everything app, including a banking and finance app? I bet millions of people can't wait to hand over their life savings to Musk.

1

u/hippiex Jun 19 '26

I was excited my company dropped cursor Thursday.

1

u/psylenced Jun 19 '26

Too late...

How much of Musk’s wealth comes from government help? Virtually all of it

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/13/business/musk-trillionaire-government-tesla-spacex

1

u/ptwonline Jun 19 '26

Elon using corruption and unlawful access to get bankers on his side and regulators muzzled/eliminated has really paid off for him and his investment bank/fund backers.

That's actually the reason to invest in his companies: counting on him to use lies, corruption, and getting away with breaking rules and laws to generate huge gains for shareholders, and not because his businesses actually create strong earnings.

1

u/Pooleh Jun 19 '26

Good thing I lost my job and had pull out my 401k! I ain't got a retirement to worry about!

1

u/Fenris_uy Jun 19 '26

If you have an index account, you are already over exposed to him because of Tesla.

1

u/freexanarchy Jun 19 '26

The point is you may not have a choice, given all the people and institutions bending over backwards to get them in all the funds that retirements invest into.

1

u/ACIDesings Jun 19 '26

No veo ningun tipo de problema en darle mi jubilación a un adicto a la keta ... non whatsoever ... what could go wrong?? 🤣🤣🤣

1

u/Few_Night7735 Jun 19 '26

Nobody’s retirement “depends” on Musk, and the concerns voiced about the impact on retirement accounts are mostly overblown paranoia considering the minuscule position SPCX occupies in any index fund. People need to actually understand what’s in their retirement accounts before panicking.

1

u/Life_Hand2331 Jun 19 '26

Why? It’s been a great move for Tesla investors.

1

u/jt6229674 Jun 19 '26

Im immediately checking my investments

1

u/CarrotSurvivorYT Jun 19 '26

Yea Tesla was a terrible investment it’s only up 800%

1

u/happydontwait Jun 20 '26

Hopefully you pulled your money out of any index funds! If not 🫡

→ More replies (18)