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>, a social media app<\/a>, and an AI chatbot developer<\/a> 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<\/a> 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<\/a>. \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<\/a> 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<\/a> and six big investment funds<\/a> 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<\/a> 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX is facing protests against its expected initial public offering from some of the same advocacy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[202,3943,203,207,1340,4023],"class_list":{"0":"post-59207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-elon-musk","8":"tag-elon-musk","9":"tag-ipos","10":"tag-musk","11":"tag-spacex","12":"tag-tesla","13":"tag-xai"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116526939137138561","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}