This Week In The Big Picture

Later this month, SpaceX is set to go public in what will be the largest IPO in stock market history. To make that happen, the major stock exchanges are rewriting their listing eligibility rules in real time.

Under the old rules, SpaceX would have failed to qualify for an IPO. It hasn’t traded publicly for 12 months, it reported a more than $4.27 billion GAAP loss in Q1 2026, and its public “float” sits at just 3 to 5 percent, well below the thresholds designed to protect ordinary investors from precisely this kind of concentrated risk. The new rules waive all three.

More pressingly, the IPO will force pension plans, 401(k)s and retirement savings to own a part of SpaceX because it will very quickly be a part of indexed-based funds held by large institutional investors. In tomorrow’s piece, Jay Kuo scrutinizes the possible justifications for bending the rules so dramatically—besides Musk’s singular political leverage over the current administration. He also looks at the real risks to everyday Americans who never signed up to be a part of this.

In case you missed it on Monday, Amelia Mavis Christnot dove into how Christian nationalists have taken over the Texas Tech University System, one of several public university systems operating in Texas. With new anti-LGBTQ+ curriculum rules and requirements to ban CRT and any so-called “woke” initiatives, the new rules are a glimpse into the far right’s decades-long project to chip away at our public education system.

And yesterday, Todd Beeton looked at the voters who could make or break Democrats’ effort to win back the House and Senate this fall: the “skippers” who didn’t cast a vote for president in 2024. Understanding why they stayed home in 2024 may hold the key to how Democrats can turn them out in November.