Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to stock index providers asking questions about SpaceX and IPO waiting periods. The letter was obtained first by CNBC. You know what that means. Absolutely f*cking nothing.
Retail investors need protections, says the letter. Protections from what? Making money? The entire premise assumes index providers changed their waiting periods specifically to help SpaceX jump the line. Warren wants answers. She could've called. She could've emailed. Instead she wrote a formal letter that some intern will respond to in six weeks with four pages of boilerplate about existing regulatory frameworks.
SpaceX isn't even public yet. That's the best part. Warren is questioning oversight of an IPO that does not exist. She's auditing a ghost. She's asking follow-up questions to a rumor. Meanwhile every pension fund and institutional investor already owns a piece of SpaceX through private markets at valuations retail traders will never see. But sure, let's worry about index inclusion rules.
The letter seeks answers on changes to waiting periods. Changes that happened months ago. For companies in general. Not SpaceX specifically. But why let facts ruin a good headline? Warren found a way to connect Elon Musk to Wall Street corruption in one letter. That's efficient. She'll get a town hall question about it. Some voter will nod. Nothing will change.
Index providers will respond with dense technical language about methodology and eligibility criteria. Warren's office will declare victory. CNBC will report on the response. The cycle completes itself. SpaceX will go public whenever it wants, get added to indexes under whatever rules exist at that moment, and retail investors will buy it at the top because they read about it in a letter.
Protections for retail investors already exist. They're called limit orders and self-control.
Photo by Sven Piper on Unsplash
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