In the run-up to SpaceX’s IPO, there have been dozens of stories about early employees and investors who stood to win millions of dollars to bet on or work for Elon Musk.
But thanks to Musk’s work with DOGE, his public comments on X, and his infamous gesture at Donald Trump’s inauguration that looked a lot like a Nazi salute, someone realized there was money to be made avoiding him.
An exchange-traded fund maker aptly named Subversive Capital has found a way to capitalize on that negative sentiment with two new exchange-traded funds against Elon.
ETFs, which are similar to mutual funds except that they trade like regular stocks, are legally registered by Tidal Trust I and associated with a brand called Subversive Markets Lab LLC. (Bloomberg was the first to spot the filing.)
Avoiding the world’s richest man can be difficult for the average investor, who likely puts his money in mutual funds linked to indexes like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100. SpaceX, which is in the FTSE Russell and MSCI indexes, was recently added to the Nasdaq 100. Musk’s other publicly traded company, Tesla, has long been a favorite of mutual funds, especially of the large-cap and growth varieties.
The two of them newly registered ETFscalled the Nasdaq-100 Ex-Elon Enterprises ETF and the S&P 500 Ex-Elon Enterprises ETF, are designed to block these companies. As of the prospectus date, the excluded companies are Tesla (TSLA) and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX), the filing states. Musk’s other companies, including Neuralink and The Boring Company, are not publicly traded.
Ex-Elon funds are likely to exclude other companies closely linked to the near-trillionaire. The Ex-Elon funds seek to “provide capital appreciation through exposure to a broad range of large-cap U.S. equity securities, excluding equity securities of companies founded, controlled or directed by Elon Musk or with which Mr. Musk is primarily associated.”
While these are legitimate funds that investors will soon be able to trade, there is also more than a bit of tongue and cheek going on. Before Ex-Elon funds, Subversive earned headlines for its other ETFs that promise to let regular people “invest like the oligarchy.” One of those funds holds stocks known to be traded by Democratic members of Congress and their spouses, and the other mirrors those held by the Republican side of the aisle.
It’s too early to tell if investors will flock to these Ex-Elon ETFs, which have QQNE and SPNE characteristics, or if they’ll outperform funds that include Musk’s companies. But they reflect a growing appetite for ways to avoid Musk, and given his famous hostility to traders shorting Teslamaybe even bother him a little.
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