Okay I'm a teacher so let me explain this to you in as simple a way as I can.

Let's say you're hungry for a sandwich. So you go to the local deli. You walk in the door, and your credit card is immediately charged $1,000. In return, the deli guy hands you a sandwich ticket - good for one sandwich. You don't get a say in this. You are required to buy this sandwich by law. What's more, there were no signs outside the deli, you received no text message, nobody called you. There was absolutely no warning that by simply walking through the door you would be forced to buy this sandwich.

The deli owner gives you a ticket and tells you your sandwich will be out soon. You don't care. You didn't want this sandwich. But you're not allowed to say no. Besides, you already bought the sandwich. So you take a seat at a nearby table and wait for your sandwich to be delivered.

You sit and watch as every person who walks through the deli door that day is automatically made to buy one of the expensive sandwiches, handed a ticket, and told to wait. Hundreds of people. The deli is starting to get crowded. Because of the demand on the sandwich, you watch as the deli owner starts raising the price of the sandwich throughout the day. It goes up to $1,150 per sandwich. Then $1,500, then $1,900. Before long, the price has skyrocketed to well over $2,500 per sandwich. And you still don't even have your sandwich. The deli owner informs you with pride that this is the single most expensive debut of a sandwich ever.

Finally, after several hours, the deli begins to close. You ask for your sandwich and the deli owner informs you that you won't actually receive it until tomorrow. Today was for BUYING the sandwich, he says. Not selling it. The selling part happens tomorrow. Again, you have no choice in this. This is just how it works. It's the law. Oh well, you think, at least once you have this really expensive sandwich, maybe you can recoup some of your $1,000 by selling it at the current price, which is valued now at almost $3,000.

So you go home, hungry, but with a sound financial plan to try to recoup your money. The next day, you're first in line at the deli. You have your ticket in hand. But before the store opens, the deli owner lets in all the employees. You notice some of them are carrying sandwich tickets of their own. Some of them have a lot of tickets. Some of them are hauling in tickets by the wheelbarrow. You try to get in, but you're not allowed yet. Again, it's the law. Inside, you can see the employees of the deli trading in their sandwich tickets for sandwiches. And because there are so many sandwiches going out the door, the price of the sandwich starts dropping again.

After the first hour, the price has dropped to $1,500. Then back to $1,000, and then, to your horror, you see it dip to $750. Then $450. Then $100. Finally, the last employee turns in their ticket and leaves. And the price of the sandwich has settled all the way down to $50.

THEN, the deli owner opens the doors and lets the general public in. You turn in your ticket, which you paid $1,000 for, and receive your sandwich, valued now at $50. Don't feel bad, the deli owner says. You came here for a sandwich. You're getting a sandwich valued well above market value. Why, that sandwich from any other deli would only be worth $20, he says. You should feel good about this! You basically made $30 today!

You look at the gigantic stack of money in the corner, from all those thousands of enforced buys yesterday. There must be trillions of dollars there. Yes, the deli owner says with pride. I am the world's first trillionaire. And I did it all just selling sandwiches. Doesn't that make you feel great? What's wrong? Can't you just be happy for me? I worked hard for this money.

Congratulations, now you understand how Elon's SpaceX IPO made him a trillionaire, and who that money came from. It came from you. On July 1, SpaceX will get two things that no other major IPO in history has ever been granted. First, they will be automatically added to the NASDAQ 100. And because of that, every single person with a retirement account, or student savings account, or mutual fund, will be forced - not asked, not suggested - required by law, to buy SpaceX stock. And you'll do it at SpaceX current July 1 prices. This will skyrocket the value of SpaceX stock through the roof. This isn't theory. This is basic supply and demand. The chair of the NASDAQ 100 said this will happen. Then, the second half of the trade will happen. Two weeks later, every employee of SpaceX who have been up to now paid in SpaceX stock, will be allowed to sell up to a fifth of their shares. They will do that at July 15th prices. This will flood the market with stock. And again, this isn't theory. This will drive the value of SpaceX stock down. Basic supply and demand Economics 101. The more supply there is, the lower the value. Then, and ONLY then will you, the general public, be allowed to liquidate any mutual funds or IRA accounts, that were forced, by law, to buy SpaceX. And you will do that at August 1 prices.

Elon isn't becoming a trillionaire from selling rocket ships. No more than that deli owner got rich from selling sandwiches. Elon is becoming a trillionaire because he rigged the game. He is forcing you, yes you specifically, by law, to purchase shares of a company that he, and every single other person from the CFO on down admit, in writing, in their IPO prospectus, that they are going to immediately devalue as soon as they can. It's a classic pump and dump con. And you're the mark.

@Lana

This was a good analogy.

Also now I am hungry.

@tezoatlipoca @Lana may I interest you in a $1000 sandwich by any chance ?

@TofuTheSquirrel @Lana

Zoidberg: once again, the sandwich heavy portfolio has paid off for the hungry investor!

<eats sandwich>

Oh no! Im ruined!

@Lana
Thanks, this is very clear. Are there financial/technical terms I can search for to get more info on the lock-in to the nasdaq 100 on July 1?
@FritzAdalis search SpaceX IPO nasdaq100
@Lana
Thanks, that's more or less what I've been doing tonight. Only to find out some of my retirement accounts are very limited in what I can choose...
Hopefully I can figure it out in time.

@Lana .....Ok but is it a good sandwich?

No?

Dang.

@Lana This is not true. Like, this whole situation is really fucking bad, and millions of people are very definitely getting scammed. Still, "every single person with a retirement account, or student savings account, or mutual fund, will be forced - not asked, not suggested - required by law, to buy SpaceX stock" is simply not true.

If you own a S&P 500 index fund, it will not buy SpaceX. E.g. https://www.ft.com/content/b39d9e91-ad91-4230-986a-aadd2ea92452

If you only own bond mutual funds, they will not buy SpaceX, cause they don't buy stocks at all.

If you only own international stock funds, no SpaceX, cause it's a US stock.

Etc.

There is no law requiring retirement funds to buy SpaceX.

SpaceX won’t make the S&P 500

Choose your index wisely

Financial Times

@itamarst any fund that tracks the NASDAQ 100 is required to purchase the SpaceX IPO. This is one of the brand new rules that SpaceX manufactured in order to rig the game.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/06/18/index-investors-how-much-spacex-youre-about-to-own/

Index Investors: Here's How Much SpaceX Stock You're About to Own

New index inclusion rules mean millions of investors are about to own the hot IPO.

The Motley Fool

@Lana Yes. But that's not a _law_, that's a rule those funds chose to have, and then a decision someone made to buy that fund.

And there are other, actively managed funds that will buy it because they are measured against the NASDAQ 100 and so gotta buy it to keep up with the Joneses.

And there are funds that buy every stock in the stock market, and they will buy it before the lock up period. E.g. funds that tracks Russell 1000 and Russell 3000; there are other indices which might have made other decisions.

But none of this is a law, it's not a government decision, it's a bunch of companies (NASDAQ, FTSE Russell which is subsidiary of London Stock Exchange Group apparently) making some decisions on their own.

And it fucking sucks, and it's totally a scam, but it's a problem with lack of regulation, and the fact people are asked to make financial retirement planning on their own behalf.

This is very much a failure of government. But it's not the government forcing people to buy this.

This matters because _people can opt out_ (in many cases, at least), which will be relevant if same thing happens with OpenAI and/or Anthropic. So you can educate people about how to avoid this particular scam, and that's not a _solution_ but it's practical harm reduction, at least.

@itamarst @Lana

But avoiding SpaceX (without loosing other good opportunities from the indices like MSCI World or NASDAQ) is not that easy.

Unfortunately, there is no "NASDAQ 100 ex Musk" ETF.

@itamarst @Lana no. There is no practical way for most people to avoid this

@itamarst @Lana 100% this. Fwiw i called the two companies that hold my 401k and other investments; and was able to verify that my portfolio didn't include nasdaq 100. The closest thing was an index fund but that will be recomposed in December so that gives me some time to figure out what to do.

I agree that the whole thing is a scam and that a bunch of people should go straight to jail if we weren't in an utterly corrupt country; however people *can* absolutely do something about it, even if it's definitely tedious.

@Lana @itamarst what about msci world and such?

@OutOfSpace @Lana https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/msci-confirms-early-index-inclusion-rules-ahead-spacex-ipo-2026-06-08/ suggests MSCI World would include it, and that's how their existing rules work, so they didn't change anything.

There's some level of, if you have fund that includes all stocks, they want to include all stocks.

@itamarst @Lana so better pause my retirement etfs for july/august 🤣
@OutOfSpace @Lana @itamarst I just switched to MSCI World ex US.
@Lana @itamarst The information in this article says that the average investor will have very low exposure to SpaceX stock. Like the one Vanguard index that this will affect is $17 of SpaceX stock for every $10,000 invested. The S&P 500 will have no spaceX stock exposure at all until next year. It seems like you’re spreading misleading stuff in this post.

@SyHoekstra @itamarst

Low exposure doesn't mean no exposure. And it doesn't reduce the scale of the scam. It just means he's stealing $1 from a trillion people instead of a trillion dollars from 1 person.

@Lana @itamarst Yeah I don’t disagree with that. The point I’m making is this will not affect individual investors, and I came away from the story you wrote thinking you believed it would, which seems like a reasonable conclusion. Also the point still stands that all the different types of accounts you listed are not going to be forced to buy the stock. And the S&P 500 will not include the stock until long after the employees have had their chance to sell. Not a lot of digging on this story painted a very different picture for me then what you presented here

@SyHoekstra @itamarst

"this will not affect individual investors"

Then you don't understand how the scam works. It absolutely will affect individual investors. Thanks for incorrecting me though.

@itamarst @Lana That's not the point. A lot of people will buy spaceX stocks without intention to buy spacex stocks and that's how the scheme works.

@itamarst @Lana I don't really know the subtleties of how all this works. All I know is that I checked my 401K and AFAICT it is a plain S&P 500 index fund. The only reason I chose that back in the day is because I felt like that was the conventional lowest risk choice.

I'd like to be able to say I was "smart", but really I'm just lucky. If I had a fund that was Nasdaq - or part Nasdaq - I'd be trying to see if I could switch it or something, but I have no idea how successful I would be at that.

@isaackuo @itamarst

Check your specific fund to make sure. If it's a fund that specifically tracks ONLY the S&P500, then you're probably safe from this particular scam.

However, many so-called "total market funds" will track the "S&P Total Market Index", which is not the same thing as the S&P itself. If you have invested in one of these (examples include VTI, SCHB, and others), then your fund absolutely will buy into this scam using your money, without your consent, on July 1.

@itamarst @Lana I have told my financial advisor that my pension pot does not hold SpaceX . Not now. Not ever.
@DoctorDNS @itamarst unless you have direct control over your pension, you don't have a choice.

@Lana That is an unusually astute and entertaining take, thank you!

The Parable of the Sandwiches.

@Lana and I'm glad I'm in a juristiction that doesn't do that shite, even tho our #Bankster-in-Chief wants to change that really hard!
@Lana if only Elon was not toxic lunchnmeat #eatTheRich
@Lana this is beautifully crafted, thank you
@Lana I have already updated all of my 401K elections to invest in funds which will not include SpaceX. Hopefully most people are able to do the same. My employer uses Fidelity and gives us a list of funds to choose from and where we can make changes pretty easily.
@Lana also the sandwich is advertised as made out of fairy dust flour that was harvested on Mars. Don’t believe it? Just look at all the other food items that were promised, but that never materialized, or were made out of moldy ingredients hastily thrown together and called gourmet.
@Lana america is a sick, sick country.
@Lana After you finally get your sandwich, it starts a rapid unscheduled disassembly and falls apart...
@Lana what goes up, must go down. Preferably all his….. with a bang.
@Lana hopefully this is a trigger for those that do have a say in where their retirement funds are invested, to do so more mindfully. Even as a poor uni grad without a dollar to my name, I was determined that my retirement funds (aka super funds) wouldn't be used to perpetuate evil. #ethicalsuper

@Lana While this is a good, entertaining post, there is an essential difference with the real situation, as others have pointed out.
Neither you nor I entered the shop to buy a sandwich. We lent money to Bob and the contract says that Bob must enter any new large sandwich shop. Bob entered the shop and was handed out the sandwich ticket.

Therefore, the real question is: who wrote that contract? Is that Bob or is that the government and all contracts are the same?

@Lana
Ah, I suspected from the 1st paragraph this was SpaceX.

Very good.

@Lana we need more teachers like you 🧡

@Lana the sandwich is plastic, you can’t even eat it. It was to be sold to the highest bidder from the start

(SpaceX is not profitable, so no dividends, meaning holding the stock won’t have any benefits)

@Lana Why will they automatically be added to the NASDAQ 100?
@JustinMac84 because he got the NASDAQ to rewrite the rules specifically for him.
@Lana and how can I avoid going to the deli at all?

@JustinMac84 don't interact with the stock market in any way. Don't have a retirement account. Don't have an IRA. Don't invest in mutual funds. Don't have any security backed savings accounts.

It's virtually impossible.

@Lana @JustinMac84 depends…

There are cooperative banks that do sustainable investments and not professionalized gambking aka "Stonks".

- And some places don't have retirement funds based iff shareholdings, like Germany.

Tho for the latter one it's basically impossible to join in unless you're employed or self-employed in Germany…

@Lana this reality of being forced by law to give free money to a rich kid is uniquely dystopian, congratulations USA
@Lana Thank you for this explanation!
@Lana An enjoyable lunchtime read. I came for sandwiches but left feeling depressed because it is quite the shit sandwich but now I can make a real sandwich as a runner up consolation prize

@Lana and one of the infuriating things is that he’s probably going to get away with this and make a ton of money, purely by virtue of people not knowing about this

i’m beginning to wonder if the reason we started hearing about the SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic IPO’s around roughly the same time frame is because they see the writing on the wall wrt AI and want to exit before the bubble pops.

@distractal oh of course he is. The entire scam revolves around two things:

1) the rules of the game being specifically rewritten just for him
2) the public must be kept in the dark until it's too late and the trap has sprung

@Lana

Well fuck. Wish I'd found out about this when there was still time to do something about it.

@Lana is this a failure of sx that seems to be working within the law while doing this or a failure of law that allows this to happen?