Elon Musk insists banks working on SpaceX IPO must buy Grok subscriptions

Banks and other firms that want to work on SpaceX’s initial public offering (IPO) are being required to buy subscriptions to the Grok AI service, The New York Times reported today.

Elon Musk “is requiring banks, law firms, auditors and other advisers working on the IPO to buy subscriptions to Grok, his artificial intelligence chatbot that is part of SpaceX,” the NYT wrote, citing anonymous sources who are familiar with the confidential negotiations. “Some of the banks have agreed to spend tens of millions on the chatbot and they have already started integrating Grok into their IT systems.”

SpaceX reportedly filed IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week. The IPO filing came two months after SpaceX purchased xAI, the Musk company that produces Grok. xAI purchased the X social network in March 2025.

While Grok is known to individual Internet users because of the chatbot’s integration with X, the AI technology also comes in business and enterprise versions offered by xAI. Grok could benefit from the SpaceX IPO process at a time when it is the subject of investigations and lawsuits for generating nude images of real people and child sexual abuse material.

“Musk insisted”

According to the NYT sources, “Mr. Musk insisted that [banks] purchase the chatbot services,” and “asked the banks to advertise on X, his social media site that is also owned by SpaceX, but was less adamant about that request.”

“For now, five banks are expected to work on the [SpaceX initial public] offering—Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. The law firms Gibson Dunn and Davis Polk are also advising on the deal,” the NYT wrote.

We contacted SpaceX today and will update this article if it provides any comment.

Banks to get big fees

The NYT notes that when there is a major IPO, “banks find ways to ingratiate themselves with the company going public, as well as its chief executive.” The SpaceX offering may end up being the biggest IPO of all time.

“The IPO is expected to raise more than $50 billion at a valuation above $1 trillion, which means the banks could generate fees in excess of $500 million for advising on the deal,” the NYT wrote.

Those fees could be even larger, based on a Bloomberg report yesterday that SpaceX boosted its target valuation to more than $2 trillion. That would be a big increase over the $1.25 trillion valuation reported in connection with the SpaceX/xAI merger two months ago.

Musk’s car company, Tesla, has a market capitalization of over $1 trillion. Musk recently obtained a pay package that would give him $1 trillion over the next decade if Tesla hits an $8.5 trillion market capitalization and meets other goals.