Five Congress members purchased SpaceX stock while sitting on committees that oversee SpaceX's federal contracts, defense programs, AI work, telecommunications deals, and securities regulation. They saw no conflict. They filed the paperwork. They cashed the checks when the stock went up.
The same people who vote on SpaceX's government funding now profit when SpaceX's valuation climbs. The same people who could investigate SpaceX for securities violations own shares that would tank if such an investigation happened. The same people drafting telecom policy own a telecom company. But sure, let's pretend the word "recusal" means something.
This is not insider trading by the legal definition because Congress wrote the legal definition. They also wrote themselves an exemption to most securities laws until 2012, then watered down that reform so thoroughly that you can drive a rocket through it. Which is exactly what happened here.
Retail traders would go to prison for texting their cousin about quarterly earnings they overheard at Applebee's. Congress members can sit in classified defense briefings about SpaceX contracts, then buy SpaceX stock in the parking lot afterward, and it's called civic participation.
The defense is always the same. The stock was purchased by a blind trust. The committee work is unrelated. The timing is coincidental. The optics are bad but the ethics are fine. And if you question any of it, you hate innovation and probably don't understand how capital markets work.
SpaceX is worth $180 billion because it launches rockets better than anyone else and because the people who decide which rocket company gets billions in federal contracts own stock in the rocket company. One of those facts is more important than the other, but only one of them gets discussed at shareholder meetings.
Your 401(k) lost money this year because you bought index funds like a responsible citizen instead of joining the committee that regulates index funds.
Photo by Sven Piper on Unsplash
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