S&P Global said on Thursday it was not changing the requirements for entry into its major indices, dealing a setback to Elon Musk’s SpaceX by effectively ruling out a swift entry for the world’s biggest-ever IPO into the benchmark S&P 500 index.
S&P said: “exceptions to the financial viability, seasoning, and IWF (investable weight factor) requirements should not be granted solely based on market capitalization”.
To be included in the S&P 500, a company must be profitable under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in its most recent quarter as well as for the sum of its most recent four quarters, according to one of the rules S&P left unchanged.
SpaceX posted a net loss of $4.94 billion in 2025, even as revenue rose 33% to $18.67 billion.
“Making exceptions because companies are so large and have been private so long yet are still not profitable, didn’t make a great deal of sense.”