Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author. He writes for the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator in London.
It isn’t merely “successful, it is morally right.” Our “civilization is being slowly strangled to death one regulation at a time.” You don’t even have to use Grok, his fast-growing chatbot, to find quotes of Elon Musk singing the praises of free-market capitalism. They are all over the internet. But talk is cheap. Does Musk really mean it? Over the next few months, the 54-year-old billionaire will have a unique opportunity to put his money where his mouth is.
According to reports last week, Musk has confidentially filed initial public offering paperwork for his rocket company, SpaceX. The move puts the outfit on track to list shares by July in what will amount to one of the largest deals Wall Street has ever witnessed. The investment bankers are already salivating over the fees it will generate. Over on the prediction markets, you can already trade on what it will be worth: The good money is in the ballpark of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion.
An IPO of this size will inspire much debate, from whether the company is possibly worth that much to whether it is healthy for one man to control so much wealth. But there is a more important issue that has so far been overlooked: Will Musk cut the ordinary American in on the deal?
Maybe. The full prospectus isn’t yet public, but according to the leaks, the IPO will aim to attract small private investors to buy up the shares. Good news if true. Better news would be if Musk went all-in and pitched the deal to Main Street instead of Wall Street. It would be the greatest single thing he could do to champion the cause he claims to profess.
The number of Americans with direct ownership of equities has been in steady decline for decades. According to Federal Reserve data, households owned 95 percent of U.S. listed equities in 1945. By 2016, that figure had fallen to 40 percent, with the difference made up by foreign ownership and the rise of pension funds. It may have ticked up a little since then, helped in part by low-cost trading apps and a long bull run. But most Americans, if they have any wealth at all, own only a slice of the market through anonymous mutual funds, ETFs or pension plans.
That matters. There is a big difference between putting some money into your retirement account every month and taking a long, hard look at a company, evaluating its prospects, making a judgment about management and then backing it with your own cash. Think of it this way: It’s like the difference between brushing your teeth at night and going to the gym every day. The first is dutifully ticking a box. The second shows real commitment and effort.
Four decades ago, the public appreciated the importance of wider equity ownership. One of the key insights of the Ronald Reagan-Margaret Thatcher era was that if people directly owned equities, they had a stake in the free market. The upshot: Those people were far more likely to support the system. Indeed, when Mrs. Thatcher privatized companies owned by the British government, she deliberately ran large advertising campaigns to bring private investors on board. Anyone who owned a small slice of companies such as British Airways or Rolls-Royce was also more likely to support lower taxes and lighter regulation. After all, it would be in their financial interests to do so.
Musk ought to consider doing likewise with SpaceX. He could offer private investors a 20 percent discount — up to $10,000. Alternatively, he could put them at the head of the queue for allocating shares if demand outstrips supply. Or the company could offer a bonus to any private investor who buys into the IPO and holds it for a year. Or, heck, why not all three?
Sure, the bankers will tell him he can get more money elsewhere. It’s easier to wrap up a deal by courting BlackRock or a sovereign wealth fund in Saudi or by bringing a few billionaire pals on board. The little guy is a lot of trouble and doesn’t have much cash anyway. Why bother?
Answer: Because it matters. Support for free markets is wafer thin, as the triumph of socialists such as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani demonstrates. Only 54 percent of Americans viewed capitalism favorably in 2025, down from 60 percent four years earlier. Thirty-nine percent were fond of socialism, the narrowest gap between the two systems since the survey began in 2010.
SpaceX has the potential to showcase the free market at its best. The company is bold and ambitious. It’s creating a new industry, pioneering innovative technologies and generating jobs and wealth along the way. The IPO is a chance to bring millions of ordinary Americans along for the ride. That might cost a few billion, but it could also convince people that free-market, risk-taking entrepreneurship isn’t such a terrible thing after all.
Surely that’s worth the price.
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