Despite an expected record-breaking IPO, SpaceX will still have to follow the rules and wait at least a year before it’s added to the S&P 500, the benchmark behind many Americans’ retirement funds
S&P Dow Jones Indices announced Thursday that it is keeping its eligibility rules intact for the S&P 500 and several other major indexes. Indexes are benchmarks that track specific slices of the stock market. The best known is the S&P 500, which tracks 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States.
Many index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) hold stocks that mirror these benchmarks in an effort to replicate their performance. These funds are a key part of many 401(k)s, pension funds, and retirement accounts.
Earlier this year, S&P Dow Jones Indices said it was considering whether to alter its rules to fast-track companies with massive market capitalizations, the total value of a company’s shares held by investors. The proposed changes would have applied to companies like SpaceX and potentially other future blockbuster IPOs such as Anthropic or OpenAI. S&P Dow Jones Indices said it consulted with players across Wall Street before making its decision.
“S&P DJI determined that exceptions to the financial viability, seasoning, and IWF [investable weight factor] requirements should not be granted solely based on market capitalization,” the company said in a press release.
That means the earliest SpaceX could be added to the S&P 500 is likely June 2027, assuming it does go public this month. Aside from being traded on the stock market for at least a year, SpaceX will also have to be profitable in its most recent quarter and over the sum of its four most recent quarters.
That could be a hurdle for Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite, and AI company. SpaceX recently revealed in its IPO filing that it reported a net loss of $4.9 billion in 2025, compared with a $791 million profit in 2024. In the first three months of this year, it lost another $4.3 billion.
Still, SpaceX is expected to go public this month in what could be the largest IPO in history. The company is reportedly targeting a valuation of nearly $1.8 trillion and could raise about $75 billion when it lists on the Nasdaq. If it reaches that valuation, SpaceX would instantly become one of the most valuable companies in the world.
Other index providers, including Nasdaq and FTSE Russell, have already changed their rules to allow companies like SpaceX to join some of their indexes sooner.
But the S&P 500 remains the most widely tracked equity benchmark in the world. Roughly $7.5 trillion in passively managed funds follow it, Bloomberg reports.
If SpaceX had been fast-tracked into the index, it would have resulted in about $14 billion in forced passive buying of the company’s stock, according to an estimate by Bloomberg Intelligence.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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