Elon Musk Built His Empire on Public Money. Now He’s Coming for Your 401(k).

A money-losing company, valued by the man who owns it, is about to land in your retirement account. The S&P said no. The index funds don't get a vote.

Elon Musk built his businesses on the back of public money. Now he has a new target: your retirement account.

The SpaceX IPO is nothing less than a government boondoggle, weaponized against America’s savings. Musk’s companies have taken at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits since 2003, the Washington Post counted last year. SpaceX alone holds more than $22 billion in federal contracts; in April 2025 it won another $5.9 billion from the Pentagon. The taxpayer built the rockets. Now Musk wants the taxpayer’s pension to buy the stock.

He is in a hurry. Musk asked the S&P 500 to waive its waiting period, and on June 4 the committee said no — an unprofitable company can’t jump the line. So he turned to the easier doors. Under CRSP’s rules, a new listing enters Vanguard’s Total Stock Market fund after five trading days. The Russell and Nasdaq committees move next, and the funds that track them must buy between $22 and $27 billion of SpaceX the day Musk rings the bell — not because anyone judged it sound, but because the rules say buy. Tens of millions of Americans hold those funds in their 401(k)s. Musk will land in their savings before they finish reading the headline.

Look at what he is handing them. Musk’s SpaceX lost $4.3 billion in the first quarter of 2026. He is floating about 4 percent of the company, keeping the price thin and easy to push. He is carrying 18,712 Bitcoin — near $1.3 billion — booked as a “strategic reserve,” tying a rocket company to the price of crypto. And he keeps stacking: in February he merged SpaceX with his AI firm, xAI, at a price he set himself — $1.25 trillion — after xAI had already absorbed X, the social network he loaded with debt. Musk built the tower, and Musk decides what each floor is worth.

We have watched a man price his own empire before.

For a decade Donald Trump told his banks what his buildings were worth, and they wrote it down. He valued Mar-a-Lago at as much as $739 million while the county assessor put it near $18 million. In February 2024, Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump had inflated his assets from 2011 to 2021 and ordered him to give back $354 million. An appeals court erased the penalty last August as an excessive fine — and left the fraud finding standing. Trump kept the money. He did not shake the verdict: a man who sets his own valuations sets them high.

Now Musk sets his, and the passive funds can’t refuse him. They will carry his price into the accounts of people who bought nothing but a promise to be average.

His rockets may well fly. The savers strapped to his balance sheet never chose the launch.