SpaceX Retail Investors Prioritize Rocket Color, Mascot Over Financials Ahead of First Earnings Call

As SpaceX prepares for its inaugural earnings call as a public company, questions from its large retail investor base are focusing less on financial performance and more on operational milestones, technical capabilities, and even the color of its rockets.

Following a model used by Elon Musk's other major company, Tesla, SpaceX opened an online forum for shareholders to submit and vote on questions ahead of its results. The forum allows the most popular inquiries to rise to the top for management to address.

Investor Questions Veer from Financials

According to a Reuters report, many of the most-voted questions from shareholders centered on non-financial topics. Key areas of interest included:

• Requests for more footage of the Starship Human Landing System, which is being developed for NASA’s Artemis moon program.
• Inquiries about expanding the role of Asteroid, the company's recently unveiled Shiba Inu mascot.
• Technical questions about in-orbit refueling for Starship and the recovery of both its booster and upper stage.

Other popular suggestions were more creative, with one user asking, "Can we paint the rocket pink?" and another proposing selling sponsorships for individual heat shield tiles. In contrast, a question about when SpaceX's AI business might become self-sufficient was ranked #183 as of late Friday.

Context and Market Performance

Ad

The unusual nature of the questions reflects the company's significant retail ownership. SpaceX allocated approximately 30% of its shares to individual investors during its IPO, one of the largest such allocations in a major U.S. listing.

This high level of retail engagement continues even as the company's shares have declined significantly, losing more than half their value from their post-IPO intraday peak, according to the report.

Broader Topics Sidelined

The topic of a potential merger with Tesla, which dominated questions on Tesla's recent earnings call, has gained almost no traction on the SpaceX forum. One question on the subject had a single upvote as of Friday morning, despite a recent Wall Street Journal report on the matter, which Musk subsequently denied.

Even a philosophical question from an investor about the value of buying shares, in light of Musk's comments that money may become less important in the future, received no upvotes with days remaining before the company's first quarterly report.