SpaceX signage exterior the Area Exploration Applied sciences Corp. facility in Hawthorne, California, on June 3, 2026.
Michael Yanow | Nurphoto | Getty Pictures
S&P International stated on Thursday it was not altering the necessities for entry into its main indices, dealing a setback to Elon Musk’s SpaceX by successfully ruling out a swift entry for the world’s biggest-ever IPO into the benchmark S&P 500 index.
Musk has rewritten the IPO playbook for SpaceX in some ways from planning to provide retail buyers an even bigger function in allocations to pushing for early index inclusion, and structuring governance to protect robust founder management.
The corporate is elevating $75 billion and focusing on a $1.75 trillion valuation that might place it among the many high 10 most respected U.S.-listed corporations, whilst solely a fraction of its shares can be found for buying and selling.
However S&P stated “exceptions to the monetary viability, seasoning, and IWF (investable weight issue) necessities shouldn’t be granted solely primarily based on market capitalization”.
To be included within the S&P 500, an organization have to be worthwhile underneath Typically Accepted Accounting Rules in its most up-to-date quarter in addition to for the sum of its most up-to-date 4 quarters, in line with one of many guidelines S&P left unchanged.
SpaceX posted a web lack of $4.94 billion in 2025, whilst income rose 33% to $18.67 billion.
Investor consultations
S&P had consulted with buyers about shortening the time a megacap firm have to be publicly listed earlier than becoming a member of its indexes, waiving minimal float necessities and eradicating its profitability requirement.
The S&P 500 is Wall Road’s most generally adopted benchmark. Passive S&P 500 index funds with trillions of {dollars} in belongings would have been compelled to purchase up SpaceX shares had guidelines been modified to confess it to the index.
“It speaks extremely of the credibility of S&P Dow Jones Indices to be rules-based and ensure there’s profitability earlier than entrance to the index,” stated Artwork Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth.
“Making exceptions as a result of firms are so massive and have been personal so lengthy but are nonetheless not worthwhile, did not make a substantial amount of sense.”
Nasdaq has already made modifications that may make it simpler for SpaceX, Anthropic and different newly listed megacaps to affix its Nasdaq 100 index.
Nasdaq 100 index funds shall be compelled to purchase a sizeable portion of publicly accessible SpaceX shares when the corporate joins that index.
Alternate operators have ramped up efforts to spice up preliminary public listings as richly valued know-how corporations similar to SpaceX and AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI edge nearer to public choices, amid rising considerations over a gentle decline within the variety of U.S.-listed firms.
S&P International stated it might modify entry guidelines for its broader S&P Complete Market Index and Dow Jones U.S. Complete Inventory Market Index, making a pathway for SpaceX to affix these much less extensively adopted indexes.
SpaceX has additionally already grow to be eligible for inclusion in each the Russell U.S. Fairness Indexes and the FTSE International Fairness Index Collection underneath the newly introduced fast-entry guidelines from the index supplier FTSE Russell.
