One expert doubts that new ETFs from Subversive will catch on in a meaningful way
Elon Musk now runs two public companies, SpaceX and Tesla. He also leads a few other private firms.
A pair of new ETFs are betting that investors will ditch typical index funds to avoid having exposure to Elon Musk's companies.
On Wednesday, Subversive ETFs filed to launch two new "Ex-Elon" actively managed exchange-traded funds. Each would exclude companies determined by fund managers to be "founded, controlled or led by" Musk, or which he is "primarily associated" with as a major shareholder or founder. For now, that's just SpaceX $(SPCX)$ and Tesla $(TSLA)$.
The firm's "QQNE" ETF would offer exposure to the Nasdaq-100 NDX, while its "SPNE" ETF would track the S&P 500 SPX. Under the stock index's rules, the S&P 500 won't include SpaceX for about a year or more, so SPNE will essentially provide access to the entire benchmark minus Tesla.
The QQNE ETF would offer exposure to all Nasdaq-100 components except for SpaceX and Tesla. New rules approved by Nasdaq $(NDAQ)$ allowed SpaceX to join the index this week without immediately kicking out another constituent.
The ETFs are just another "gimmick," said Dave Nadig, president and director of research at ETF.com, who said he is "extraordinarily skeptical." They're a play to attract investors who are outraged enough by Musk but, like other narrowly focused ETFs, they probably won't amass "significant" assets, he added.
Nadig pointed to the Inverse Jim Cramer ETF, which bet against the stock recommendations of CNBC personality Jim Cramer. That ETF was shut down less than a year after it was launched, with manager Tuttle Capital Management citing a lack of interest.
Nadig described other Subversive funds as similarly gimmicky, pointing to funds that track stocks sold by either Democratic or Republican members of Congress. The Democratic ETF goes by the "NANC" NANC ticker, after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while the Republican ticker is simply "GOP" GOP.
A representative for Subversive didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Like congressional stock trading, Musk has invited plenty of controversy. That's in part due to his involvement in both U.S. and global politics. His controversial "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE, was shut down on July 4, though Musk left the federal government in May of last year.
His involvement in politics and his support for President Donald Trump have both helped and hindered his companies. Tesla's stock price briefly surged after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, but then its car sales took a hit in both Europe and the U.S. through much of 2025.
There are "a lot of people who just don't want to be aligned with" Tesla and Musk due to his politics, said Emily Green, who oversees wealth management at Ellevest. Some investors are also concerned about Musk's "basically unchecked power" over SpaceX and the company's roughly $2 trillion valuation, she added.
People who share such concerns are the intended target of Subversive's ETFs. While investors could try on their own to both achieve broad market exposure and dodge certain companies, doing so can be expensive.
A common practice at Ellevest is direct indexing, through which investors directly buy stocks and create a personalized index. That allows clients to prioritize stocks that align with their values, Green said. For example, an investor focused on environmental, social and governance $(ESG)$ values could made an index excluding companies with poor third-party sustainability ratings, such as SpaceX.
Theoretically, investors could mimic Subversive's ETFs that way. However, costs could quickly add up, as investors may need to buy tens to hundreds of individual stocks depending on how closely they want to mirror an index such as the S&P 500, which may turn investors away.
"You need to have a certain amount of wealth to build that type of account," Green noted.
Analysts largely see room for shares of SpaceX to head higher, with the average price target among analysts tracked by FactSet sitting 58% above current levels. Tesla's stock currently trades in line with the average FactSet target, though the most bullish analyst tracked by FactSet thinks it can climb nearly 50% from here.
"Removing those companies may reduce certain perceived risks, but it may also create tracking error and could cause investors to miss upside if those companies outperform," Jia Hao, a professor of finance at Babson College, told MarketWatch over email.
-William Gavin
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 09, 2026 15:52 ET (19:52 GMT)
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