Two weeks after Elon Musk’s company’s record IPO, President Donald Trump bought up to $50,000 worth of SpaceX stock on June 23, according to financial disclosures first reported by Reuters.
It’s unclear how much President Trump paid for the stock, but at the time the stock had fallen from a high of more than $200. SpaceX stock was trading in the mid-$150s as of June 23, but as of Monday’s close, the shares had closed at the IPO price of $135, meaning the president’s stake may be underwater.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk remain close despite a brief falling out last summer in which the businessman accused the president of withholding Justice Department documents on Jeffrey Epstein because Mr. Trump’s name frequently appeared. A recent Wall Street Journal analysis found that SpaceX is increasing government contracts and benefiting from the Trump administration’s deregulatory stance.
White House press secretary Davis Ingle told Reuters the president’s stock portfolio is managed by a third-party financial institution and replicates “famous indexes such as the Schwab 1000.” SpaceX lobbied the popular index ahead of its IPO to change its rules to allow faster inclusion. This means that many people likely own some of the company’s stock, even if they don’t know it.
