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Two new funds are borrowing from Mean Girls' Gretchen Wieners, telling Elon Musk: "You can't sit with us."
Subversive ETFs filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week to launch a pair of "ex-Elon funds," including the Nasdaq-100 Ex-Elon Enterprises ETF (QQNE) and S&P 500 Ex-Elon Enterprises ETF (SPNE). The actively managed products offer exposure to the Nasdaq-100 and S&P 500, respectively, but ditch any securities in companies founded, controlled, led or primarily associated with Musk. In other words, mostly SpaceX and Tesla.
There are plenty of reasons investors may want to kick the world's richest man out of their portfolios: his polarizing views and right-wing politics, including an on-again-off-again alliance with President Trump, his controversial labor practices, market-moving comments on crypto and, of course, his handling of chainsaws, just to name a few. But will that actually compel investors to move assets into these new funds?
"In theory, the ETF is an interesting idea, since many investors may have strong opinions about Elon Musk," said Aniket Ullal, head of ETF research and analytics at CFRA. "In practice, however, it will have to overcome several challenges."
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X'ing Out Musk
This isn't Subversive's first time hoping that excluding certain types of investments will curry favor with investors. Its Subversive Metaverse ETF (PUNK), which focused on metaverse companies but excluded Meta, launched in 2022 before being shut down the year after. But this time, it's betting that excluding Musk's companies will lure investors who view the "potential corporate governance concerns, political risks, and heightened share-price volatility" often tied to those firms as "less desirable," per the filing.
It likely won't be an easy road for QQNE and SPNE, Ullal said: