Two Lawmakers Disclose SpaceX Stock Buys After Record IPO
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- Rep. Dan Meuser disclosed his dependent child bought between $15,001 and $50,000 of SpaceX stock on June 15 — the first individual stock purchase by Meuser or his family in several years, per House financial documents.
- Rep. Gil Cisneros reported a June 18 purchase of between $1,001 and $15,000 in SpaceX stock, telling CNBC that he and his wife use outside financial advisors with fiduciary responsibility and have never directed a trade while in government.
- SpaceX went public on June 12, raising roughly $75 billion in the largest IPO on record and pushing its market cap past $2 trillion; shares opened at $150 and closed Thursday at $162 — up about 8% from the open but roughly 20% below the June 16 high of $201.80.
- Both lawmakers sit on committees with direct relevance to SpaceX — Meuser on House Financial Services (which oversees securities and exchanges) and Cisneros on House Armed Services (which oversees the Defense Department, a major SpaceX customer) — making the trades politically sensitive even though the STOCK Act permits them and there is no evidence either violated the law.
- CNBC previously reported that Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), a top House GOP leader, had a family investment of up to $250,000 in xAI before Elon Musk folded the AI company into SpaceX ahead of the listing.
- Ethics watchdogs told CNBC the Meuser and Cisneros filings are likely the tip of the iceberg, with more disclosures expected as lawmakers file in the coming weeks.
- Bipartisan efforts to ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks have stalled — House GOP leaders vowed late last year to bring a bill to the floor and a Senate proposal advanced from committee in July 2025, but neither chamber has acted further.
Why it matters: The disclosures land on lawmakers whose committees directly oversee SpaceX's world — Meuser's Financial Services panel regulates the exchanges that listed the company, and Cisneros's Armed Services panel oversees the Pentagon, a major SpaceX customer. That overlap, layered on a $2 trillion-plus market cap and roughly $75 billion raised, makes these the highest-profile congressional stock trades in years and virtually guarantees ethics scrutiny, even though no law was broken and broader stock-trading bans remain stalled in both chambers.
