SpaceX has been the talk of Wall Street since its historic IPO, with both retail and institutional investors piling in, but there’s one group that won’t be chasing the hype.
Inspire Investing, which focuses on “biblically responsible investing,” says it won’t be going near Elon Musk’s rocket and AI company for one reason: it’s social media business. CEO Robert Netzly told Business Insider that X, which is a part of SpaceX-owned xAI, has prevented SpaceX from passing Inspire’s “moral audit.”
“SpaceX is an impressive company by any financial measure, and I had no doubt the IPO would generate extraordinary excitement,” he said. “But I wonder sometimes whether investors have paused to ask what they are actually becoming a partial owner of when they buy.”
Netzly said that his team doesn’t have any problems with Space’X’s missions of sending rockets and satellites into orbit, ethically or financially. However, the company failed the firm’s moral audit, the first step in its investment process, due to the type of content that X allows its users to share.
The CEO cited a report from National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which has described X as a vehicle for the dissemination of sexually explicit content. He described the company’s behavior as “highly egregious” and added that it had failed to correct course.
“You can’t buy Space X without profiting from those activities. As exciting as Space X might be as a rocket company, we have to ask deeper questions.”
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
Netzly said that Inspire also won’t be buying Tesla stock any time soon, but for different reasons. He said that Musk’s car company doesn’t meet the firm’s standard because of health benefits it offers for employees who need to travel out of state for reproductive care.
Inspire, however, sees no moral issue with stocks tied to military and defense, with Netzly flagging Palantir as a name it’s bullish on. The AI-powered data software maker has inked valuable contracts with the Pentagon and has deals with ICE to assist with immigration enforcement.
That doesn’t phase Netzly, though, who says Inspire is focused on other aspects of the company’s work.
“Palantir is a technology company,” he said. “There is risk with a business like Palantir, for their surveillance technology, and for work that they do to be misused, greatly misused. A business like that needs to be paid special attention to, but similar to a firearms manufacturer, we don’t hold the manufacturer guilty for customers who may misuse that firearm.”
He noted that Inspire is keeping an eye on Palantir to monitor for activity it would considered unethical, but so far, they remain invested.