Trump bought SpaceX shares two weeks after IPO, disclosure shows

President Donald Trump bought as much as $50,000 worth of SpaceX shares on June 23, according to a financial disclosure first reported by Reuters — two weeks after the record-setting IPO of Elon Musk’s company. It’s not clear what price Trump paid, but by that point the shares had fallen from highs of over $200; SpaceX stock was trading in the mid-$150 range on June 23. At the close of trading on Monday, shares stood at the IPO price of $135, possibly putting the president’s stake underwater.

Trump and Musk are close, despite a brief falling-out last summer over Musk’s accusation that Trump was withholding the Department of Justice’s files on Jeffrey Epstein because of how often Trump’s name appears in them. SpaceX has been winning an increasing amount of government contracts and benefiting from the Trump administration’s deregulatory stance, according to a recent Wall Street Journal analysis.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle told Reuters that the president’s stock portfolio is managed by third-party financial institutions and replicates “recognized indexes, such as the Schwab 1000.” SpaceX lobbied popular indexes to change their rules to allow for faster inclusion ahead of its IPO, meaning many people likely own some of the company’s stock even if they don’t know it.

Why it matters

The purchase adds a personal financial stake to a relationship already under scrutiny over SpaceX’s growing government contracts and the administration’s lighter regulatory touch toward the company.