European funds split on buying SpaceX over governance concerns

Owning SpaceX would be “very difficult to reconcile” with those requirements, said Frédéric Ducoulombier, a programme director at the Edhec business school’s Climate Institute. “Standard published methodologies from managers would disqualify SpaceX on routine criteria [such as board independence and shareholder rights] without requiring any novel analytical steps,” he said. 

“A manager could in principle construct [an ESG] methodology reaching a different conclusion, but the burden of documenting and defending it would be heavy . . . The problem is the governance, and the governance problem does not go away,” he added.