The Pipeline
How OpenAI, Anthropic, Waymo and a Wave of Unprofitable Giants Are Being Readied for Your Retirement Account
Part Two of The Retirement Heist Series
SpaceX is the most sympathetic case they could have chosen to break open the door. What’s waiting behind it is something else entirely.
Here is a number that should stop you cold.
Combined potential demand from SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, and a handful of other megacap IPOs expected across 2026 and 2027 has been estimated at $100 to $200 billion -- exceeding the entire 2025 U.S. IPO market by two to four times. Even with deep institutional capital pools, absorbing that volume in a compressed window would test public-equity demand in a way that has no modern precedent.
There is only one pool of capital deep enough to absorb it without strain: the passive index complex, where the overwhelming majority of American retirement savings now sits.
SpaceX prices in June. If it trades well, the window opens for Anthropic and OpenAI later in the year. Then Databricks. Then Stripe. Then, potentially, Waymo. Each one eligible for index inclusion under the new rules six months after listing. Each one, if the Committee adds it, flowing automatically into every S&P 500 index fund, every target-date retirement fund, and every 401k default in America.
You did not vote for this. You were not asked. The consultation window that made it possible closed May 28th. Most Americans will never know it existed.
Here is what is in the pipeline.
The Empire That Started It All
Before examining what follows SpaceX through the door, the SpaceX story itself acquired a dimension this week that most of the S-1 coverage missed.
