Good! It’s three shitty companies in a SpaceX trench coat.
I’m it sure I’d call it even that. One has a weak profit and potential for more - they currently have an effective monopoly on NASA launches I think? The other two are DOA; calling X and XAI “company” is too generous.
The S&P 500 is Wall Street’s most widely followed benchmark. Passive S&P 500 index funds with trillions of dollars in assets would have been forced to buy up SpaceX shares had rules been changed to admit it to the index.
“It speaks highly of the credibility of S&P Dow Jones Indices to be rules-based and make sure there’s profitability before entrance to the index,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth.
“Making exceptions because companies are so large and have been private so long yet are still not profitable, didn’t make a great deal of sense.”
Nasdaq has already made changes that will make it easier for SpaceX, Anthropic and other newly listed megacaps to join its Nasdaq 100 (.NDX), opens new tab index.
Nasdaq 100 index funds will be forced to buy a sizeable portion of publicly available SpaceX shares when the company joins that index.
This misses the most important quote - what the rule actually is.
To be included in the S&P 500, a company must be profitable under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in its most recent quarter as well as for the sum of its most recent four quarters, according to one of the rules S&P left unchanged.
SpaceX posted a net loss of $4.94 billion in 2025, even as revenue rose 33% to $18.67 billion
Which is a completely reasonable rule.
Yup. You want to speculate on SpaceX, then no one is stopping you. You may even make a shitload of money if you do it right (based on recent valuations I’m not so sure, though), but maximizing short term capital gains based on vibes is absolutely not what the S&P 500 is used for.
If SpaceX is actually consistently profitable, they’ll be in the index in one year. Is what it is.
Excellent. I’m sure this wasn’t a decision made to protect retail investors but it’s better than NASDAQ’s approach
CNBC syndicated link (same article), in case you hit the Reuters paywall: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/05/spacex-blocked-from-early-us-benchmark-index-entry-as-sp-reaffirms-existing-rules.html
With this announcement by S&P, VFIAX-Vanguard 500 Index Fund Admiral Shares (and VOO ETF) is now superior to Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Admiral Shares ticker: VTSAX (and VTI ETF) as VFIAX will not hold any SpaceX and investments will be protected from the SpaceX fleecing of investors.
I’ll be liquidating my entire position of VTSAX on Monday and putting it all in VFIAX in my 401k.
I wish it were this easy to liquidate “total market funds” to switch them to S&P500 tracked funds in brokerage accounts. :(
