Trump bought up to $50,000 of SpaceX shares two weeks after its IPO. The stock has already slipped.
A financial disclosure shows the president bought SpaceX shares at around $150 each. They now trade at $135, roughly where they started when the company went public.
Key points
- President Donald Trump bought between an unknown minimum and $50,000 worth of SpaceX shares on June 23, 2026, according to a financial disclosure.
- SpaceX shares were trading in the mid-$150 range on the day of purchase and closed at $135 at the end of trading on the most recent Monday.
- The White House says Trump's portfolio is managed by third-party institutions and tracks broad market indexes.
- SpaceX lobbied major stock indexes to include its shares more quickly after its IPO, which means many index fund holders now own SpaceX stock without choosing to.
- SpaceX has won a growing number of government contracts under the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump bought up to $50,000 worth of shares in Elon Musk's SpaceX on June 23, 2026, roughly two weeks after the company's record-setting initial public offering, the moment a private company first sells shares to the general public. Reuters first reported the purchase, citing a federal financial disclosure.
The disclosure does not state exactly how much Trump paid per share. By June 23, though, SpaceX stock had already pulled back from its opening highs of over $200. Shares were changing hands in the mid-$150 range that day. By the close of trading this past Monday, the price had settled at $135, which was also the original IPO price. That means the president's stake could now be worth less than he paid for it.
Does Trump's stock pick create a conflict of interest?
Potentially, yes. SpaceX holds a growing number of federal government contracts, and analysts at the Wall Street Journal found the company has benefited from the Trump administration's lighter-touch approach to business regulation. Owning shares in a company that profits from decisions made by your own government is the kind of overlap that ethics watchdogs flag.
The White House told Reuters that Trump's investments are handled by outside financial firms and are designed to mirror broad market indexes, like the Schwab 1000, a list of the 1,000 largest US-listed companies by market value. The argument is that the president does not choose individual stocks himself.
There is a wrinkle, though. Before its IPO, SpaceX lobbied the companies that manage those indexes to change their rules so SpaceX could be added faster than usual. That campaign worked. As a result, millions of ordinary Americans who invest in broad index funds, including many retirement savers, now hold SpaceX shares without ever actively deciding to buy them.
What does this mean for ordinary investors?
If you own a total-market or large-cap US index fund through a 401(k) or an individual retirement account, check whether SpaceX has been added to your fund's holdings. It may already be there. That is not necessarily a problem, but it is worth knowing, especially given that the stock is currently sitting right at its opening price with no gains to show.
Trump and Musk have maintained a close relationship, despite a public dispute last summer over Justice Department files related to financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The honest takeaway: If you are in a broad index fund, log in and search for SpaceX in your holdings. You may own a small slice of a company whose fortunes are tied to federal policy decisions in ways that are still playing out.
