SpaceX asked the keeper of the S&P 500 to rewrite its entry rules ahead of the company's IPO. On June 4, after a monthlong consultation, S&P Dow Jones Indices said no: no shorter seasoning period, no waiver of the 10 percent public-float requirement, and no exemption from the profitability screens for so-called MegaCap companies.
The stakes were quantified by Bloomberg Intelligence: fast entry would have triggered around $14 billion in automatic buying for SpaceX from the $7.5 trillion in passive funds tracking the index, with OpenAI estimated to gain more than $8 billion and Anthropic $4.6 billion after their own expected IPOs. SpaceX planned to float roughly 3 percent of its shares and carries $29 billion in debt from its AI infrastructure spending, per Ars Technica.
Other index providers bent: Nasdaq will admit SpaceX to the Nasdaq-100 within 15 trading days, and FTSE Russell after five. The harder question is the profitability screen itself, which requires positive earnings in the latest quarter and the four prior, a bar none of the three AI heavyweights currently clears.