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Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX is facing protests against its expected initial public offering from some of the same advocacy groups that helped erase $600 billion from Tesla\u2019s market cap early last year.<\/p>\n
SpaceX\u2019s IPO is poised to be the largest ever, raising tens of billions of dollars for the Musk-founded company and valuing it above $2 trillion. If all goes as intended come June, the conglomerate that now owns a rocket manufacturer, a social media app, and an AI chatbot developer will instantly rank among the world\u2019s top 10 largest publicly-traded companies.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote to the US Securities and Exchange Commission urging it to scrutinize SpaceX\u2019s IPO preparations. The company\u2019s shares are likely to end up in the retirement accounts of the union\u2019s 1.8 million members who come from education, health care, and government. \u201cI have significant concerns about the degree to which this extremely large offering will comply with the securities laws\u2019 requirements concerning full disclosure of material information and fair treatment of investors,\u201d Weingarten wrote in a letter shared with WIRED.<\/p>\n
The union is one of several organizations and activists advocating for greater oversight of SpaceX\u2019s IPO. Some are going as far as calling for investors to boycott the IPO for many of the same reasons they outlined when pressuring Tesla shareholders to dump their stock last year.<\/p>\n
The IPO \u201cwill bring an infusion of cash that Musk will control and tap for personal and political gain,\u201d says the loosely organized activist group Divest From Tesla. \u201cJust as he has tapped Tesla to access tremendous wealth that he used, not for the greater good, but to sow seeds of chaos and fascism, so he will with SpaceX.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weingarten and the American Federation of Teachers want SEC chair Paul Atkins to direct his teams to closely check SpaceX\u2019s IPO filings as part of a routine review that is currently underway. She cited concerns about the company\u2019s business plans potentially relying on \u201cnonexistent or speculative technologies,\u201d the reported thoroughness of its accounting, and the adequacy of its board of directors. Members\u2019 pension funds are likely to hold SpaceX shares within days\u2014not months\u2014of the IPO under newly enacted stock exchange rules. But whether SpaceX can ever deliver the profits necessary to justify its outsized valuation is questionable, meaning the value of the stakes could fall precipitously and harm retirees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe commission must demand ironclad disclosures, independent oversight and safeguards against forced investment\u2014or risk consigning workers\u2019 life savings to the whims of a company that operates more like a Musk family venture than a transparent, publicly traded enterprise,\u201d Weingarten said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Last year, she urged state and local officials and six big investment funds to review their holdings of Tesla shares.<\/p>\n
AkademikerPension, a retirement plan for teachers and other government workers in Denmark, considers SpaceX\u2019s rumored valuation target \u201cvery rich and would in isolation make us cautious in participating,\u201d says the fund\u2019s head of global equities, Dan Wejse. As SpaceX reveals additional details closer to its stock market debut, Wejse also plans to scrutinize the company's financials and shareholder structure. AkademikerPension has been divested from Tesla since last year over concerns about a lack of independence on the automaker\u2019s board and Musk\u2019s involvement in politics.<\/p>\n
Lehigh County, Pennsylvania\u2019s retirement board paused new investments in Tesla last year. County controller Mark Pinsley says the board hasn\u2019t discussed a potential SpaceX investment yet, but he\u2019s concerned that it will automatically become part of the county\u2019s portfolio through index funds that generally hold stakes in the largest companies. \u201cSpaceX is going to be supported by pension funds not because it has good fundamentals but because it lands in an indexable range,\u201d Pinsley says. \u201cIt's going to do OK even if it shouldn't. Tesla was losing revenue hand over fist as [Musk] was talking to Trump, but barely did Tesla shares fall.\u201d<\/p>\n
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment for this story. While testifying last week in his trial against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Musk described the goal of SpaceX as making it possible for humans to live on other planets \u201cto ensure the long-term survival of life and consciousness as we know it.\u201d Musk, who is CEO and self-described chief engineer, described SpaceX as \u201clife insurance for life as we know it\u201d and added that offering the possibility of living among the stars was important to excite people. \u201cLife cannot just be about solving one miserable problem after another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk became ever more the globally polarizing figure after helping lead President Donald Trump\u2019s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and overseeing mass cuts to jobs, contracts, and grants across federal agencies.<\/p>\n
The political activity prompted numerous campaigns against the automaker Tesla, where Musk is CEO. Tesla Takedown, for instance, demonstrated by Tesla showrooms, service centers, and charging stations to pressure people to reconsider the company\u2019s cars. The group also encouraged individual investors and big investment funds to sell off their Tesla holdings. \u201cHurting Tesla is stopping Musk,\u201d Tesla\u2019s Takedown website states. \u201cStopping Musk will help save lives and our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tesla shares fell about 40 percent amid the backlash, and the company reported lackluster sales last April. Musk acknowledged the pressure tactics as a \u201cbig deal\u201d and ended up stepping away from DOGE. Since then, Tesla shares have surged back up, and Musk has talked up the company\u2019s increased focus on developing robots. But activists feel they successfully delivered a message last year and are hoping to repeat that with SpaceX, even if it\u2019s unlikely that they derail the IPO in a significant way.<\/p>\n
Last month, environmental activists demonstrated outside of meetings with investors that SpaceX held in Tennessee, where it has a key data center, and Texas, home to SpaceX headquarters. They fear the company\u2019s growth could fuel further pollution and other unwelcome effects. Tesla Takedown helped promote the protests.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpaceX wants the public to buy into the myth of the final frontier\u2014but this is really a desperate cash-out before the cracks in Musk's empire become impossible to ignore,\u201d Tesla Takedown tells WIRED. \u201cExploding rockets, a militarized Starlink, dangerous xAI outputs: The risks aren't hypothetical, they're mounting, and the era of the blank check for Elon must end.\u201d<\/p>\n
So far, big investment managers have been quiet about their plans for the IPO. For example, the financial services giant Blackrock excludes Tesla shares from a couple of exchange-traded funds such as GBAL and XUSR that take into account a company\u2019s environmental, social, and governance policies. It declined to comment on whether it plans to exclude SpaceX shares from those or other funds.<\/p>\n
ABP, a Dutch pension fund that sold off a stake approaching $600 million in Tesla in 2024, declined to comment on potential future investments in SpaceX. The fund\u2019s policies bar investments in companies involved in serious controversies related to the environment or corporate integrity; activists could make the case SpaceX is in the midst of both.<\/p>\n
Aarian Marshall contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Save StorySave this storySave StorySave this story Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX is facing protests against its expected initial public offering from some of the same advocacy groups that helped erase $600 billion from Tesla\u2019s market cap early last year. SpaceX\u2019s IPO is poised to be the largest ever, raising tens of billions of dollars for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50056,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}