Before the SpaceX IPO, there was a lot of news about early employees and investors who stood to make millions of dollars by betting on, or working for, Elon Musk.
But because of Musk’s work with DOGE, his public comments about X, and the nasty gesture he made at Donald Trump’s inauguration that looked like a Nazi salute, someone saw that there was money to be made in avoiding him.
An exchange-traded fund founder with the eponymous name of Subversive Capital has found a way to tap into that pessimism with two new anti-Elon exchange-traded funds.
ETFs, which are like mutual funds, except they are traded like common stocks, are officially registered by Tidal Trust I and attached to a product called Subversive Markets Lab LLC. (Bloomberg was the first to see the filing.)
Avoiding the world’s richest man can be tricky for the average investor, who probably puts his money in mutual funds linked to indices like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100. SpaceX, which is the FTSE Russell and MSCI indices, was recently added to the Nasdaq 100 indices. That means it is included in the indices. that track those funds that track those funds. Musk’s other publicly traded company, Tesla, is a long-time favorite of mutual funds, especially large-cap and growth types.
Two newly registered ETFs, called the Nasdaq-100 Ex-Elon Enterprises ETF and the S&P 500 Ex-Elon Enterprises ETF, are designed to hedge these companies. As of the date of the prospectus, businesses not included are Tesla (TSLA) and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX), the filing states. Musk’s other companies, including Neuralink and The Boring Company are not publicly traded.
Ex-Elon funds may not include other companies closely associated with billionaires, too. Ex-Elon funds seek to “provide financial appreciation with exposure to a broad area of US equity securities of large capitals, while excluding equity securities of companies founded, controlled, or led by Elon Musk, or with which Mr. Musk is primarily associated,” so the document was read to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
While these are legitimate currencies that investors will be able to trade in the near future, there is also a lot more tongue and cheek going on. Before the Ex-Elon funds, Subversive got headlines for some of its ETFs that promised to let ordinary people “invest like an oligarchy.” One of those funds holds shares known to be sold by Democratic members of Congress and their spouses, while the other mirrors those held by the Republican side of the aisle.
It’s too early to tell if investors will flock to these ex-Elon ETFs, which have the tickers QQNE and SPNE, or if they’ll do better than Musk’s portfolio of companies. But they show a growing desire for ways to avoid Musk, and, given his well-known hostility to traders shorting Tesla, perhaps even anger him a little.
If you shop through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
