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FT News Briefing

Extended version: Why Elizabeth Warren is worried about SpaceX

FT News Briefing

Forhecz Topher

News & Politics, Daily News, News

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2026

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In our extended interview, US Senator Elizabeth Warren discusses SpaceX’s initial public offering and what she sees as its potential risk to investors.


Mentioned in this podcast:

SpaceX leapfrogs Amazon to become world’s fifth-most valuable company

https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/warren-calls-on-sec-to-delay-spacex-ipo


Want to get in touch? Email us at podcasts@ft.com


Note: The FT does not use generative AI to voice its podcasts 


The FT News Briefing is produced by Victoria Craig, Sonja Hutson, Saffeya Ahmed, Katya Kumkova, and Fiona Symon. Our editor is Marc Filippino. Our show is mixed by Kelly Garry and Alex Higgins. Additional help from Gavin Kallmann, Michael Lello, Peter Barber and David da Silva. Our intern is Cole van Miltenburg. Our executive producer is Topher Forhecz. Flo Phillips is the FT’s global head of audio. The show’s theme music is by Metaphor Music. 


Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com


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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Last week, SpaceX's initial public offering was the largest in history.

0:06.7

And on the morning, we're recording this Tuesday, it briefly passed Microsoft as the fourth largest company by market capitalization.

0:13.5

All the while, Elon Musk, the owner of SpaceX, has become the world's first trillionaire,

0:18.0

thanks to his shares in the AI-to-Rocket's business.

0:22.3

But for some, the SpaceX listing and its blockbuster valuation is a reason to worry, not celebrate. In the run-up to the

0:26.9

IPO, U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to the head of the Securities and Exchange

0:31.1

Commission asking the regulator to delay the listing. Warren is a ranking member of the Senate

0:36.2

Banking Committee. She joins me now to talk about

0:38.4

why she opposed the SpaceX IPO and what it tells us about the American economy. Senator Warren,

0:43.3

welcome. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. So let's start with the most recent updates.

0:48.1

SpaceX has shot up in value by more than a trillion dollars within just several days of going

0:53.2

public. That's from an initial valuation

0:55.1

that was already the highest in history. What are your thoughts as you're watching this?

0:59.6

Look, I want Americans to have opportunities to invest in companies that help our economy grow.

1:06.8

But the confidence of investors is a big reason why our markets are the envy of the world.

1:14.1

And this particular IPO has enough red flags on it that it should stop anyone in just thinking about it.

1:25.8

So look at it this way.

1:27.4

First of all, the valuations.

1:29.2

Elon Musk valued his company with numbers that analysts call nonsensical and out of this world, in part,

1:40.0

based on the merger of SpaceX and XAI, which means, I guess, Elon Musk got in a room with Elon Musk

1:47.4

and negotiated on how much the merger should be worth.

1:50.4

Then secondly, SpaceX pushed the major index providers to change their rules to force SpaceX

...

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