A Head Full of Ideas that were Driving Me Insane....

Ah, what a lovely article! Sometimes standards get upheld!

As you may have heard, SpaceX has filed to do an IPO (initial public offering [of stock shares]) and go on the stock market. Lots and lots of people are salivating, perhaps Leon Muskbrat most of all. They also filed with the New York Stock Exchange for a quick listing on the Standard & Poor 500 stock market index.

And they were rejected to get listed on that index.

HAD they been accepted, their valuation would have skyrocketed, no pun intended. Lots of institutional investors buy funds directly based on the S&P rather than or in addition to buying individual stocks, so that mix would have contained SpaceX immediately.

What squelched the deal?

A basic problem that Musk-lead companies have long had: profitability.

In order to be included in the S&P 500, the company has to be currently profitable, and must have been profitable in the four preceding quarters. SpaceX is not currently posting a profit, and never has. There is also a rule that they must release at least 10% of their shares to be publicly traded, SpaceX is going to release 3%. After a month-long consultation to decide whether to allow the rules to be waved to allow SpaceX into the club, the decision was made to not open the door.

This may hamper Muskbrat's quest to become the world's first trillionaire. Now, will he alter the IPO to let loose more shares to meet the 10% threshold, and will he alter operations to make it more profitable? I expect that among the things dragging it down is he's making SpaceX buy almost all of the Tesla Cybertruck production to keep Tesla's sales chugging along. Apparently SpaceX's debt load is $29 BILLION dollars US because of its AI debt load. That's a big load on profitability, having to service that amount of debt.

The AI company Anthropic has also filed for an IPO. It's sealed, so details are not much available, like what percentage of shares will be let loose. But like all AI companies, it is not profitable.

However, Leon did get some good news with the Nasdaq folks, who decided"... to allow SpaceX to enter the Nasdaq-100 Index within 15 trading days as opposed to the usual three months. Similarly, the FTSE Russell index provider decided to give SpaceX and other follow-on companies accelerated entry to the Russell Top 500 Index after the close of the fifth trading day following an IPO."

But there was even more bad news for SpaceX: "...Morningstar analysts described SpaceX as having been “significantly overvalued” in the lead-up to its IPO. The investment research firm valued SpaceX at $780 billion—less than half of SpaceX’s $1.75 trillion IPO goal—primarily based on the strengths of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service and rocket launch business."

OUCH! A Muskbrat-led business overvalued? Say it isn't so!

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/sp-500-blocks-fast-spacex-entry-wont-waive-rule-for-unprofitable-ai-firms/

Ah, a sad day. He was a marvelous actor and did a lot of work. Aside from the TV series Buffy, he appeared in the Apple TV series Ted Lasso, and from the AP article: "...Other notable roles included playing Geoffrey Howe, the deputy to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, played by Meryl Streep, in the Oscar-winning “The Iron Lady.”

Head portrayed a prime minister himself in the sketch comedy show “Little Britain,” as well as King Uther Pendragon, the father of Prince Arthur, in the “Merlin” TV series. He also appeared in “Motherland,” Manchild,” and “Silent Witness,” along with acting in many plays, musicals, and recording music as a singer.

Head passed away 'due to complications from pneumonia'. He will be missed.

https://apnews.com/article/anthony-head-obit-buffy-vampire-lasso-a1c56edf560de048e730a2cf337e4223