Business

Musk Asks Banks to Spend Tens of Millions on Grok AI on Eve of $2 Trillion SpaceX IPO
By Reuters | 03 Apr, 2026

The record $75 billion sought by the SpaceX IPO implies a $2 trillion valuation, giving Elon Musk massive clout with IPO banks Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup.

FILE PHOTO: SpaceX's logo and an Elon Musk photo are seen in this illustration created on December 19, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/File Photo

Elon Musk is requiring banks and other advisers working on SpaceX’s planned IPO to buy subscriptions to Grok, his artificial intelligence chatbot, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Some banks have agreed to spend tens of millions of dollars a year on the chatbot and have begun integrating it into their IT systems, the report said.

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup are serving as active bookrunners, or the lead banks managing the deal, Reuters reported earlier this week.

Musk and SpaceX did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. The five banks did not immediately respond to Reuters' queries.

The Starbase, Texas-headquartered rocket maker boosted its target initial public offering valuation above $2 trillion, according to a Bloomberg News report a day earlier, setting the stage for what could become the largest stock market listing on record.

The company aims to raise a record $75 billion, which would dwarf previous mega-IPOs such as Saudi Aramco in 2019 and Alibaba in 2014.

(Reporting by Savyata Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Berkrot)