Hacker News

by Ryan Harman

Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance' (bloomberg.com)

96 points by leopoldj 2 hours ago

fluidcruft 32 minutes ago

It's really concerning given how the indexes are changing rules to fast-track SpaceX being forced into index funds. S&P is also working on updates to S&P 500 to force it down everyone's throats quickly and algorithmically.

mohsen1 22 minutes ago

There is a market for an S&P 500 ETF without those companies. I'll immediately switch over

zzleeper 14 minutes ago

Let me know if you find one! I'm at a loss. (And even then, if I switch I have to pay $$$ taxes on capital gains)

stouset 5 minutes ago

_delirium 11 minutes ago

aNoob7000 29 minutes ago

Add Anthropic and OpenAI to the list. Companies that are bleeding money.

Personally, a company should be making money before adding it to the index.

parliament32 11 minutes ago

Interestingly, these are the exact rules they're working to overturn: currently, no matter how many stupid accounting tricks you pull off, you need to actually be profitable to be included in the S&P 500.

hparadiz 23 minutes ago

Together they account for $65-75 billion in revenue annually. That's using existing hardware that they already have. Obviously they are spending to increase that hardware footprint. But they could just not do anything and continue raking in the money.

So in light of that. When you say stuff like "bleeding money". Do you know how to do basic math? Where are you getting these figures?

Because from where I'm sitting it seems like you're just operating on hopes and feels.

parliament32 9 minutes ago

matthewdgreen 14 minutes ago

tclancy 11 minutes ago

alpha_squared 16 minutes ago

43fg 12 minutes ago

SilverElfin 4 minutes ago

The same rules are now affecting other big IPOs. I think Cerebras was confirmed as getting fast listing too even though they’re much smaller. It’s one big act of dumping on retail markets

lokar 41 minutes ago

How can I transfer my shares of VTI for an interest in this pension fund, before it’s too late?

stouset a few seconds ago

VTI won’t really be affected by this.

It’s based on the total market and not artificially limited to a small number of large companies. Plus it’s free-float adjusted so only the publicly-tradable portion of SpaceX is considered when weighting its inclusion.

There is also a mandatory delay period which I don’t recall between it going public and it becoming included in the index.

Lastly, Vanguard and its member funds are investor-owned so likely more resilient against someone like Elon trying to change the rules.

tgv 19 minutes ago

BY getting a job in Denmark in the sector that this pension fund covers. It's a "member-owned pension fund for academics."

red-iron-pine an hour ago

is anyone surprised? the IPO documents are a disaster, and the finance-tube talking heads are all tearing it to shreds

kome a minute ago

again, i’ve been posting this a lot recently, but i still think it’s worth sharing: it’s a summary of a paper i wrote, “it’s not finance, it’s your pensions” https://theloop.ecpr.eu/its-not-finance-its-your-pensions/

the piece explains how modern finance is de facto built on the shoulders of the privatization of welfare. i find it particularly relevant here: the finance class - in this case musk - wants pensioners money via mutual funds, even modifying the rules of indexing...

it’s not a great sight tbh.

thesimon an hour ago

Matt Levine described it well (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/newsletters/2026-05-21/spa...)

> The deal, with SpaceX, is that Elon Musk runs it however he wants, and he does weird stuff, and you have to trust him, and if you don’t like it you can’t complain.

> When SpaceX acquired xAI a few months ago, did a special committee of independent directors approve the transaction? Did Musk recuse himself from negotiations? Was the price set by independent valuation experts using a rigorous process? Did outside shareholders sue to block the deal? Stop. Musk wanted SpaceX to buy xAI, so it did.

> [...] Surely SpaceX has created all that shareholder value more because Musk does what he wants than in spite of Musk doing what he wants; it is hard to accidentally create $1.75 trillion of value. SpaceX’s shareholders signed up for this deal — letting Musk cook — and have been rewarded;

nicole_express 2 minutes ago

It seems like a fine offer to have exist, but one that a pension fund with low risk tolerance wouldn't want to take. So everything seems reasonable with the world.

Similarly I don't understand why indicies are rushing to change their rules to allow SpaceX in. People accept a certain risk tolerance and changing the rules to ramp up the risk seems questionable at best.

vondur an hour ago

Isn't that how Facebook is ran too? Basically Zuckerberg's private company, that in theory is public?

grassfedgeek 6 minutes ago

Right, if Meta had good governance Zuck wouldn't have been allowed to invest so much in Metaverse.

jdgoesmarching 3 minutes ago

Tech bros reinvent autocracy

zerotolerance 30 minutes ago

Should have renamed the company xGoodwill.

pu_pe 29 minutes ago

Wouldn't the same argument apply against Tesla?

fuglede_ a few seconds ago

https://akademikerpension.dk/nyheder/vi-ekskluderer-tesla/

rvz an hour ago

Good. Would love to buy SpaceX stock at a 90% discount after the IPO and the next tech / AI correction.

hparadiz 33 minutes ago

Imagine not wanting to own a piece of the first company to make a re-usable orbital class booster.

Octoth0rpe 17 minutes ago

> Imagine not wanting to own a piece of the first company to make a re-usable orbital class booster.

They didn't say they didn't want to own it, they said they wanted to own it at a : "90% discount after the IPO and the next tech / AI correction."

It is possible for a company to be both technically impressive and horrifically overvalued.

hparadiz 6 minutes ago

horsawlarway 21 minutes ago

Yeah, I also don't want to eat a tasty morsel if you roll it around in the dirt and serve it up covered in bugs and hair.

And that's basically what SpaceX is right now after you account for xAI and twitter in the mix.

So I'd love to own a piece of the SpaceX from a decade ago - but the current offering smells pretty bad.

Combined with the fact that at this point, Musk clearly isn't opposed to running a business with dramatically inflated valuations based on vaporware, lies, & hype (cough - Tesla - cough) it just makes me far more skeptical than I might otherwise be.

I think caution is warranted here.

Essentially - I want to own the SpaceX that could have been if we didn't end up with the shoddy k-hole version of musk in charge of things.

hparadiz 13 minutes ago

malcolmgreaves a minute ago

Don’t make emotional investment decisions!

twalla 2 minutes ago

I'd love to own SpaceX - what I don't want to own is all the unprofitable, toxic dogshit its ketamine-addled CEO folded into it that has nothing to do with putting stuff into orbit or selling Starlink.

petesergeant 4 minutes ago

This implies there's no price at which owning SpaceX is a bad idea, which is obvious nonsense.

bix6 19 minutes ago

Imagine buying the most overvalued company of all time helmed by a crazy man who does Nazi salutes. Payback period? Who cares! Orbital class booster yayyyy

SilverElfin an hour ago

It’s obviously a scam. First xai acquires failing Twitter and then SpaceX acquires xai? At a made up valuation number that’s too high? The voting structure of SpaceX prevents Elon from ever being held accountable. Not to mention that the revenue and profits are simply not enough to justify the desired value.

nolok 28 minutes ago

Merging the failling companies into the other ones is the usual Elon thing, Solar City didn't get acqui-merged into Tesla for its great result.

It's not a "scam" in the traditionnal sense, it's riding the bubble while it's there, stock value is "supposed" to be about the company performance and potential but technically it doesn't have to be, it's about what some people are willing to pay for it (the stock, not the product the company sells) and that's all. That's also why tesla has such a valuation.

You can see it in the comments even here and other thread about this IPO, some people read the numbers, and some have just religious sounding comments about it being the biggest revolution ever or making the history book etc ...

And that's also why they need to keep elon as CEO because in the scenario where they remove it and get the best car company CEO and become a great regular car company that works and ships lots of great car ... Their valuation would be reduced a factor of ten

kingleopold 2 hours ago

lol they are now against tech too, they lost and making sure lose is certain. how do they think future growth will come to their feet? with old population and blocking investments?

parliament32 a minute ago

[delayed]

leopoldj an hour ago

New York City Comptrollers published similar concerns [1]. I suppose you could apply your point equally to NYC these days :-)

1. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/letter-to-spacex-re-ipo-...

rayiner 28 minutes ago

NYC puts the "c" in "catastrophic governance."

kingleopold an hour ago

YES, remember who they elected in NYC :)

hparadiz 35 minutes ago

I literally don't care if SpaceX stock is at a loss (it won't be lol)

It's worth owning just to get your name in the history books.

wizzwizz4 2 minutes ago

Can you provide an example of a history book that lists minor shareholders of companies?

NuclearPM 3 minutes ago

???

DivingForGold 39 minutes ago

I have just crossed sold all my investment and the Danish pensions off my list, unreliable.

gmerc 2 minutes ago

Calm down Grok