It’s incredibly dumb that it was ever even under consideration.
"Smarts" has nothing to do with anything there and never has, so at least IMO, it's noteworthy that they didn't just sell out the index.
This is a ridiculous situation, a ridiculous valuation, and a very risky business (data centers in space? c'mon, be serious).
This is as per Patrick Boyle's https://youtu.be/IHD8BDFYyGI?si=FZ52TSEYnpJwZ1FT
People don't buy the S&P 500 because they buy the index because it spreads risk. That they won't get maximum returns is the intended risk tradeoff they want.
That people consider the S&P 500 as a vehicle for "maximum money" is precisely why it should be considered in a bubble. And why actions like the NASDAQ's fast-track exceptions are so concerning.
The moment you start making exceptions to the rules because "gotta push the stock index higher", it's game over for the entire economy.
Look at what happened with Uber: they were a giant incinerator that ran on investment cash for years and years and years in a low interest rate environment.
Since we have an at least somewhat-sane fiscal policy for the time being, they can't do that anymore. Now, they have to find other source of cheap cash that comes with few or no strings that could ever make the almighty founder class have to consider someone else.
Could they compete with other investments on the open market by adjusting what shareholders could expect? Sure, but that would mean potentially diluting the equity that the founders and early investors could get, and when you consider that OpenAI thought that the 100x cap wasn't generous enough, I think you get an idea of what kind of greed we're dealing with here.
Passive investors were their target for this: lots of money, not a lot of questions.
It'll be interesting to see what they go for next. I'm willing to bet Trump starts screaming at the Fed to lower rates again.
S&P - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26P_Global - is a business intel & analytics firm, not an investment firm. Their S&P 500 list just one of many datasets that they manage and sell. Cleverly trying to pick future winners and losers has little potential upside for them, and could put them into direct competition with many of their customers.