Elon Musk asks SpaceX IPO banks to buy Grok AI subscriptions, NYT reports

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.

JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs declined to comment. Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup 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.