European asset managers are currently checking whether the company meets the EU’s strict sustainability rules.Image: keystone
The space company SpaceX received the worst sustainability rating from the index provider MSCI. Due to deficiencies in corporate management, major European investors could distance themselves.
June 21, 2026, 3:25 p.mJune 21, 2026, 3:25 p.m
Markus Abrahamczyk / t-online
The index provider MSCI gives SpaceX a bad report. As the “Financial Times” reports, Elon Musk’s company received the worst sustainability rating, “Triple C”. The rating was retroactively dated June 11th. That’s the day before the company’s historic $75 billion IPO.
The provider only awards the “Triple C” grade in exceptional cases. Russia was also listed at this level in 2022 after the attack on Ukraine. According to MSCI, SpaceX is lagging behind its industry because management allegedly neither adequately recognizes nor manages material ecological and structural risks.
A “horror story” for investors
Corporate management performs particularly poorly. In this category, SpaceX only scores 3.2 out of 10 points. Analysts criticize the extreme concentration of control among insiders, possible conflicts of interest, the lack of control over compensation and the lack of independence on the supervisory board. Frédéric Ducoulombier, program director at the climate institute at the Edhec business school, called the situation a “governance horror story for investors in public markets” after reviewing the stock market documents.
In the “Controversies” category, MSCI only awarded one point out of ten and set an orange warning signal. Companies that are directly or indirectly involved in serious incidents receive this signal. For comparison: Volkswagen received a red warning signal in 2022 due to allegations of forced labor in Xinjiang, as did the mining company BHP after the Mariana dam disaster. Both have now been ranked higher again.
Trillions of assets are at stake
There is a lot of money at stake for the newly listed company. European asset managers are currently checking whether the company meets the EU’s strict sustainability rules. If not, funds with assets under management of more than 6.5 trillion euros are not allowed to permanently hold SpaceX shares in their portfolio.
Musk had already sharply criticized the sustainability auditors’ grades as “fraud” in 2022. The simple reason: At that time, his car company Tesla was thrown out of the S&P sustainability index.
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