SpaceX’s expected June IPO is already getting a cold reception from the people whose retirement money could end up backing it. Major U.S. unions and pension funds are pressing the SEC to scrutinize the company closely, arguing that Elon Musk’s public offering could be priced on hype, political volatility, and a corporate structure that still looks more like a founder-controlled empire than a conventional listed company.
If the SpaceX IPO lands anywhere near the reported valuation above $2 trillion, it would instantly become one of the most watched listings in market history. That scale also explains the pushback: under index-fund rules, shares of a giant like SpaceX could flow into retirement portfolios almost immediately, leaving public employees with exposure before most of them have even had a chance to ask what they own.
AFT wants the SEC to slow SpaceX down
The American Federation of Teachers, which says it represents 1.8 million workers in education and healthcare, has asked SEC Chair Paul Atkins for a tough review of the company’s disclosures. The concern is straightforward: SpaceX combines rockets, Starlink, and xAI ambitions under one roof, but critics say the business is being run more like a ”Musk family business” than a transparent public corporation.
That complaint is not just ideological noise. Tech founders often get a generous valuation pass before a public listing, but the biggest deals usually survive only when governance looks boring enough for pension money. Here, investors are being asked to believe in multiple moonshots at once, plus a management style that has a habit of turning every earnings story into a personality test.
Pension funds are already drawing a line
European institutions are joining the resistance. Denmark’s AkademikerPension, which already exited Tesla over the lack of an independent board, says SpaceX’s target valuation looks inflated. ABP, the Netherlands’ biggest pension fund, sold its Tesla stake in 2024 after environmental and ethical disputes, and it is hardly eager to go back for another helping.
There is a pattern here that predates this IPO by a lot longer than Musk’s latest courtroom appearance. Large asset owners have become more willing to treat governance and climate risk as balance-sheet issues, not side quests, and SpaceX is arriving at exactly the moment when that discipline is getting sharper.
Critics also point to the more awkward parts of the business case: speculative technologies, possible environmental damage from heavier launches in Texas, and Musk’s own political profile. The group Divest From Tesla, which says it helped wipe $600 billion off Tesla’s market value, argues that fresh IPO cash could become fuel for more disruption rather than more discipline.
Musk is selling a survival story, not just shares
Musk, for his part, has cast SpaceX as ”life insurance for humanity” and a necessary step toward colonizing other planets. That pitch is classic Musk: grand enough to make skeptics roll their eyes, powerful enough to keep believers hooked. The problem is that public markets usually prefer cleaner math to cosmic destiny.
The real question is whether investors will separate the rocket company from the man attached to it. With Musk’s political entanglements, including his role in Donald Trump’s ”Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), that may be harder than the pitch deck suggests. If the IPO succeeds, it could rewrite the ceiling for private-space valuations; if it stumbles, it may also expose how far pension funds are willing to follow a celebrity founder before they start asking for receipts.