SpaceX retail investors want pink rockets, skip AI questions
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- SpaceX opened an online forum modeled on Tesla's format, letting investors submit and vote on questions ahead of its first earnings call as a public company, with Musk expected to answer the most popular submissions.
- SpaceX allocated roughly 30% of its IPO shares to retail investors — one of the largest individual investor allocations in a major U.S. listing — and shares have since lost more than half their value from the post-IPO intraday peak.
- The top-ranked investor questions included requests for more Starship Human Landing System footage, the potential educational role of SpaceX's Shiba Inu mascot "Asteroid," orbital refueling timelines, and one user asking, "Can we paint the rocket pink?"
- Financial and business-outlook questions ranked far lower on the forum — "When will the AI business begin paying for itself?" sat at No. 183 as of Friday afternoon.
- A potential Tesla–SpaceX merger, which investors repeatedly pressed Musk about during Tesla's earnings call the prior week, barely registered on SpaceX's forum with a single upvote, even after the WSJ reported Tesla executives were told to prepare for a China business separation to facilitate a merger (Musk denied the report).
- One investor challenged Musk's own long-term vision directly, asking why anyone should buy more shares if Musk believes money may lose importance within 10 years due to AI and robotics — a question that received zero upvotes.
- Another user suggested selling sponsorships for individual heat shield tiles so fans could have their names flown into space.
Why it matters: With ~30% of IPO shares in retail hands and more than half the post-IPO value already lost, the forum's crowd-driven question list reveals what Musk's biggest shareholder bloc actually cares about heading into the debut earnings — and it isn't AI margins or Starlink cash flow. The gap between the question rank for AI profitability (#183) and a request to paint the rocket pink (top of the list) suggests retail engagement without retail sophistication, a dynamic analysts and Musk will navigate on Tuesday's call.
