Musk Sets Condition for Banks to Share in SpaceX's IPO

Banks looking for a piece of SpaceX's blockbuster stock debut are finding there's a condition attached: Sign up for Elon Musk's chatbot. According to people familiar with the talks, Musk is telling banks, law firms, auditors, and other advisers that if they want in on SpaceX's expected $50 billion-plus initial public offering—at a valuation topping $1 trillion—they must purchase enterprise subscriptions to Grok, the AI chatbot housed under SpaceX after its merger with xAI. Some banks have agreed to spend tens of millions and begun weaving Grok into their tech systems, the New York Times reports.

Five Wall Street heavyweights—Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley—are lined up on the deal, alongside law firms Gibson Dunn and Davis Polk. The move underscores Musk's leverage as banks chase hundreds of millions in potential fees and gives Grok a corporate revenue jolt as it trails ChatGPT, Claude, and Google's Gemini. Musk has also pushed advisers to advertise on X, his social platform, though with less insistence. Already the wealthiest person in the world at a net worth of more than $800 billion, he's headed toward the $1 trillion mark. If he doesn't get there first, SpaceX's debut probably will push him into 13 figures; Musk owns about 43% of the combined SpaceX-xAI firm, per Forbes.