Elon Musk demands that banks advising on SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO must subscribe to his AI chatbot, Grok

In an unorthodox move, Elon Musk is making banks progressive successful SpaceX's archetypal nationalist offering (IPO) motion up for Grok, X's AI chatbot.

Banks are not the lone ones the SpaceX CEO feels person to pay-to-play. His request encompasses instrumentality firms, auditors and different advisors moving connected the IPO, according to the New York Times (1).

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Some banks person already agreed to walk tens of millions connected Grok, with the chatbot already being integrated into their IT systems. The banks' names, however, were not disclosed successful the paperwork filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this month.

SpaceX is slated to beryllium the largest IPO successful history, astatine an approximate $1.75 trillion (2). With less companies (3) making it to nationalist offering, Wall Street is anxious for this landmark deal.

As of February 2026, Grok became a wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX.

So, wherefore is Musk making Grok mandatory for banks? He wants to make recurring endeavor contracts for xAI. This would displacement gross from idiosyncratic users to large business.

Ahmad Shadid, co-founder of the confidential improvement environment, ORGN, shared his concerns with Moneywise.

"These banks basal to payment immensely from 1 of the biggest IPOs successful history, with imaginable underwriting fees estimated successful the hundreds of millions of dollars, truthful Elon finds himself successful a presumption of powerfulness and antithetic leverage wherever helium tin easy request thing successful return," helium said. "What could payment him much than nonstop gross into a institution that is not profitable?"

The Grok subscription injects gross straight into xAI, which is present portion of the consolidated SpaceX group. Income from subscriptions and endeavor contracts from large banks is simply a immense boost.

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"These banks are perchance reasoning that the wealth they volition get from underwriting fees and the IPO's prestige volition astir apt dwarf the tens of millions they volition wage annually for Grok subscriptions," Shadid added.

He added that ample and semipermanent endeavor contracts are beardown signals to investors, making fundraising and IPO easier.