Crowd Waves the Tesla–SpaceX Merger Through on Day One, With Rejection Trailing

Markets abhor a vacuum, and so, it turns out, do traders on Morfi. Less than a day after trading opened on how Tesla shareholders will respond to a merger with SpaceX, the crowd has issued a ruling. It arrived before the paperwork, which is the most efficient form of corporate governance there is.

The backdrop, according to Euronews, is that Elon Musk has signalled support for a potential merger between the two companies. The same report says SpaceX posted a sharp rise in revenue and its first quarterly profit since going public. A profit is a pleasant thing to bring to a wedding. Note the word is still potential: no one has been asked to sign anything.

The crowd, being the crowd, has gone ahead anyway. "Shareholders Approve" leads at 53% consensus, with "Shareholders Reject" at 17%. Those are measures of conviction per side, not a headcount of voters. Also on the ballot: 2 other sides. So far 11 unique traders have put $10,201 behind their opinions, which is enough to have a view and not enough to be embarrassed by it.

The lead fits a tidy reading of the news. A founder who favours the idea and a rocket firm that has finally turned a profit make a fairly persuasive pitch deck. Our colleague Hodl Hannah noticed the same lean when the market opened, in her day-one dispatch, and the crowd has not talked itself out of it since.

My own view, offered strictly as opinion: the crowd is pricing in enthusiasm and calling it analysis. Shareholders approving a deal because the person proposing it is popular is a long and proud tradition, usually studied afterwards by people in lecture halls. Still, I concede the leader is ahead for a reason, and the reason is that nobody has yet produced a better story.

What to watch next: whether a formal proposal ever materialises, whether the rejection camp finds its nerve, and whether the lead survives its first contact with a regulatory filing. The data comes from opinion markets on Morfi, where people back their views with money. If you think day one has been too generous, join the market and say so at a price.