SpaceX’s Investor Q&A Has Been Filled With Memes and ‘Crypto Bros’

SpaceX’s attempt to give investors a voice in its first earnings call is not going entirely to plan.

Ahead of the rocket company’s first earnings since its record-breaking IPO, SpaceX set up an online forum for shareholders to submit questions for Elon Musk and other executives.

The forum — which SpaceX said was built with its AI tool Grok — has been filled with crypto references, memes, and posts promoting Asteroid, a Shiba Inu plushie the company has adopted as its mascot.

“Will Asteroid (your mascot) go to Mars?” read one of the top-voted posts, while another called for SpaceX to expand its line of Shiba plushies, which the company sells for $35.

“Can we paint the rocket pink?” asked another of the most popular questions.

It is not clear how many of the posts are from actual SpaceX investors. The forum appears to allow anyone to sign up and submit questions.

Many of the posts appear to be pushing a cryptocurrency called “Baby Asteroid,” with one question referencing the token becoming the second most popular post with 750 upvotes.

Baby Asteroid, a tiny crypto coin that ranks outside the 8,000 biggest cryptocurrencies by market cap, briefly soared 262% in a four-hour period on July 31, according to data from Coinbase, before giving up most of its gains.

Business Insider counted roughly 20 posts on the forum referencing Asteroid, out of 371 in total. The deluge of crypto-promoting posts on the investor forum has attracted the ire of some of the more serious posters.

“Can we get downvotes on this Q&A. We got crypto bros pumping up asteroid mascot coin in the questions instead of real investor questions,” wrote one poster.

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

Earnings…. in space?

There were also many serious questions in the forum, with investors asking about SpaceX’s plans to test orbital refueling of its Starship rocket and progress on the company’s contract with NASA to return humans to the moon.

Several posters also asked about the prospect of SpaceX merging with Musk’s other company, Tesla — a rumor that also attracted the interest of Tesla investors ahead of the EV giant’s own second-quarter earnings last month.

Others veered into science fiction, with multiple posts asking if SpaceX intended to develop antimatter engines, a theoretical form of propulsion. Some were out of this world, with one person asking if a future earnings call could be conducted by executives in space.

Some of the questions aren’t completely out of place. In the past, Musk has embraced stunts (sending his Tesla Roadster to space) and followed through on fan suggestions (adding Dog Mode to Teslas).

It comes as SpaceX gears up for its first major test as a public company. The Starship maker is set to report Q2 earnings on Tuesday, with Morgan Stanley analysts expecting SpaceX to post a $1.7 billion loss for the quarter.

SpaceX is also bracing for a wave of insider stock sales as its first lock-up period expires on August 6, with around $100 billion in stock set to become available to trade.

Analysts have warned that the end of the lock-up could lead to further upheaval in SpaceX’s already volatile stock price. SpaceX’s shares have erased more than $1 trillion in value since its post-IPO surge peaked in June.