SpaceX's $2T IPO bends market rules as X shrinks under Musk

In a recent episode of The Verge's Decoder podcast, host Nilay Patel interviews New York Times tech reporter Ryan Mac about SpaceX's impending IPO, valued at nearly $2 trillion — the largest in history. Mac, co-author of "Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter" (2024), details how the IPO bends standard market rules: Musk retains outsized shareholder control, the company may skip major index fund inclusion, and institutional investors are staying silent to avoid missing the windfall. Meanwhile, the S-1 filing reveals that X (formerly Twitter), now buried inside SpaceX, is shrinking across all major metrics — users, revenue, and engagement — validating Patel's 2022 prediction that buying Twitter would be a disaster for Musk.

Despite X's decline, the IPO's scale and Musk's leverage highlight a troubling trend in corporate governance: the ultra-wealthy can circumvent accountability when the potential financial upside is large enough. Mac notes that no major fund managers or investors are objecting, even as rules designed to protect market fairness are relaxed. The interview underscores that Musk's growing power is detached from the performance of his individual companies — X is a drag, but SpaceX's astronomical valuation (plus Tesla, Neuralink, etc.) still positions him to become a trillionaire. This raises questions about who holds power in today's markets and whether any check exists on figures like Musk.