According to a New York Times report on Friday, Elon Musk is requiring banks and other financial advisers involved in SpaceX’s planned initial public offering to purchase subscriptions to Grok, his AI-powered chatbot. The report cited people familiar with the matter.
Some banks have already agreed to spend tens of millions of dollars annually on the chatbot and have started integrating it into their internal IT systems, the report added.
Major financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup are serving as active bookrunners—the lead banks managing the deal, Reuters reported earlier this week. Musk and SpaceX did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Bank of America declined to comment, while Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to inquiries.
Bloomberg News reported a day earlier that the rocket maker, based in Starbase, Texas, has raised its target IPO valuation to over $2 trillion, setting the stage for what could become the largest stock market listing in history. The company aims to raise a record $75 billion, a sum that would surpass previous mega-IPOs such as Saudi Aramco in 2019 and Alibaba in 2014.
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