Two lawmakers disclose SpaceX stock buys after IPO
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- Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) disclosed his dependent child bought $15,001–$50,000 in SpaceX stock on June 15, the first individual-stock purchase by him or his family in several years.
- Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.) disclosed a June 18 purchase of $1,001–$15,000 in SpaceX stock, telling CNBC he uses outside financial advisors and has never suggested a trade while serving in Congress or at the Department of Defense.
- The trades are politically sensitive because Meuser sits on the House Financial Services Committee (which has jurisdiction over securities) and Cisneros sits on House Armed Services, which oversees the Pentagon — a major SpaceX customer.
- SpaceX went public on June 12 in the largest IPO on record, raising roughly $75 billion at a $2 trillion-plus market cap; shares closed Thursday at $162, about 8% above the $150 opening but roughly 20% below the June 16 high of $201.80.
- CNBC previously found that Rep. Lisa McClain's (R-Mich.) husband bought up to $250,000 in xAI before Musk folded it into SpaceX, positioning her family to benefit from the listing; there is no evidence any lawmaker traded on nonpublic information.
- Anthropic has confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO and OpenAI followed targeting a valuation near $1 trillion, fueling expectations that more lawmakers' tech-IPO holdings will surface in upcoming disclosures.
- House Republican leaders vowed late last year to bring a congressional stock-trading ban to the floor, and a Senate proposal advanced out of committee in July 2025, but neither chamber has taken further action.
Why it matters: Both lawmakers sit on committees with direct relevance to SpaceX — securities oversight and Pentagon contracting — making their post-IPO buys politically combustible even though no law was broken. With Anthropic and OpenAI also heading toward public listings and ethics watchdogs expecting more disclosures, the trades intensify scrutiny on a congressional stock-trading ban that has stalled in both chambers.
