Elizabeth Warren wrote a letter to stock indexes about SpaceX IPO oversight. SpaceX is not going public. Has not announced plans to go public. Might never go public. But Warren needs answers about the waiting periods and retail protections for an event that does not exist.
This is like writing to the fire department about sprinkler codes for a house nobody has built. On land nobody owns. In a city that might not get zoned for residential use.
The Senator obtained these concerns from the part of her brain that sees Elon Musk's name and starts typing. Index providers have waiting periods already. They have rules. They update them when needed. But Warren thinks maybe they will change those rules specifically to rush SpaceX into indexes before retail investors can properly lose their money at a slower, more regulated pace.
CNBC got the letter first, which means Warren's staff called them and said hey, want to see a letter about a thing that is not happening? And CNBC said yes, because SpaceX and Warren in the same headline gets clicks from two different groups of people who hate-read everything.
The real story here is that Warren assumes index providers will bend their standards for SpaceX. Which means she thinks the standards are fake. Which means she thinks oversight is performative. Which means she agrees with every cynical trader who already knew that. She just wants different performance artists running the show.
Retail investors do not need protection from a SpaceX IPO. They need protection from themselves. But you cannot write that letter to Schwab without admitting your entire voter base should not be allowed near a brokerage account.
Photo by Sven Piper on Unsplash
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