SpaceX went public this week, and the market responded the way it always does when Elon Musk dangles something shiny: with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever at a tennis tournament.
Here’s what happened. A company that launches rockets into space—a venture that requires solving physics problems most of us cannot even read without our eyes glazing over—decided it was time to let regular people own a piece of it. Investors lined up. They bought stock. The price went up. Everyone felt smart.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, the economy is doing what it does best: confusing everyone. Inflation is still sticky. Mortgage rates remain stubbornly high. Wage growth is not keeping pace with the cost of literally everything. People are genuinely worried about affording rent.
But SpaceX? SpaceX is going to Mars. Or at least it is going to try, which apparently is enough to make investors forget that their 401(k)s are supposed to fund retirement, not a billionaire’s hobby project.
The absurdity is not that SpaceX is going public—it is a real company doing real engineering. The absurdity is the priority. We have collectively decided that the prospect of reusable rockets and Martian colonies is more exciting than, say, fixing the housing crisis or making healthcare affordable. SpaceX stock is the financial equivalent of buying a sports car when you cannot pay your mortgage.
Does this mean you should avoid SpaceX stock? Not necessarily. But it does mean you should ask yourself: am I buying this because I believe in the company, or because I am exhausted by the state of the actual world and need to believe in something?
That is the real launch happening here.