Famed investor Jeremy Grantham says history will end up laughing at SpaceX, the ‘craziest IPO in the history of man’ that just joined the Nasdaq 100

SpaceX’s Nasdaq-100 inclusion is driving bullish positioning, but critics remain skeptical of its “multiplanetary” prospectus language. Shares are down ~7% over the past month (~$150 vs a ~$135 launch reference), while Wall Street targets vary widely ($205 to $300, with J.P. Morgan at $225 and noting the $1T revenue-by-2031 goal needs “strong execution”). Analysts also flag governance risk from Musk’s 82% voting power, but index fast-track rules could increase flows given higher buy-side demand versus limited supply.

Analysis

The market implication is less about SpaceX itself and more about who monetizes the plumbing around late-stage private assets. NDAQ is the cleanest beneficiary if its faster inclusion rules increase the value of being the default home for “must-own” new listings; that supports index licensing, trading volumes, and ETF rebalancing activity more than core listing economics. The second-order effect is on passive funds and benchmark-sensitive managers: if large private names are forced into public-market wrappers sooner, the scarcity premium migrates from private investors to index providers and liquidity intermediaries.

MS and GS get a softer, but still real, read-through: the more public markets re-price late-stage private tech, the more banks can monetize secondary placements, structured exits, and hedging demand around concentrated founder control. The bigger issue is governance risk—single-founder control can sustain a premium until it suddenly doesn’t, which means these names can trade with low correlation to fundamentals and high sensitivity to any leadership or regulatory shock. That argues for treating the current enthusiasm as a flow-driven bid, not a durable earnings re-rate.

Contrarian view: the consensus is overestimating the permanence of index demand and underestimating supply response. Once a security becomes a benchmark constituent, natural sellers appear quickly—early holders, employees, and crossover funds monetizing into strength—so the initial price support can fade after the first rebalance window. If SpaceX weakens or any delay occurs in broader private-market liquidity, the “must-own” narrative can unwind in weeks, while the structural benefit to NDAQ is more likely to accrue over months through listing-market share and ETF flow capture.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long NDAQ on pullbacks for a 1-3 month flow trade; thesis is that faster index inclusion and private-to-public conversion increase trading and licensing relevance, with upside capped by the fact this is not an immediate earnings step-up.
• Avoid chasing MS/GS on the SpaceX narrative alone; use any strength to trim if the stock is trading primarily on late-stage private-mark enforcement rather than underwriting or advisory fundamentals.
• Pair trade: long NDAQ / short a broad market-structure peer if available in the book; the relative trade is cleaner than an outright bet because the benefit is mostly franchise-specific and timing-sensitive over 1-2 quarters.
• Set an alert for any failed post-inclusion price support or 10-15% drawdown in the name over the next 4-8 weeks; that would confirm the move is being driven by forced demand rather than durable long-only sponsorship.
• For event-driven desks, wait for a liquidity or lockup-style catalyst before expressing a bullish view in the underlying private asset; until then, the better expression is via exchanges and index infrastructure, not the asset itself.