SpaceX IPO: Musk may offer 30% stake to retail investors as company plans April briefings

SpaceX is planning briefings with its executives in April as the Elon Musk-led company moves closer to its initial public offering, according to a Bloomberg report. This comes at a time when Reuters, in a separate report, said the billionaire may offer a massive 30% allocation of SpaceX IPO shares to retail investors.

As per the Bloomberg report citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the space startup has been telling potential SpaceX IPO investors to expect the briefings in April as advisors scramble to file for potentially the biggest listing in history.

SpaceX is set to hold the investor meetings that are supposed to “test the waters” in the weeks after the Easter holiday, Bloomberg reported, quoting the people. The news agency earlier reported that Elon Musk's space and AI company is set to file confidentially as soon as this month for the IPO that could raise as much as $75 billion.

According to one of the people cited by Bloomberg, SpaceX has already been holding informal meetings with prospective investors about the potential listing.

The next briefings could include more details on the SpaceX IPO that would validate the company's valuation target, according to one of the people quoted by Bloomberg.

The SpaceX IPO, targeted for June, could raise the company's valuation to $175 trillion, the news agency previously reported.

At a $1.75 trillion market value, SpaceX would be bigger than all but five of the companies in the S&P 500 Index — Nvidia Corp., Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. It would be larger by that metric than Meta Platforms Inc. and Musk’s own Tesla, the two other members of the so-called Magnificent 7 stocks that together account for more than one-third of the index’s market value.

30% retail allocation in SpaceX IPO

In a separate report, Reuters said, citing a person familiar with the matter, that Elon Musk is discussing allocating up to 30% of the SpaceX IPO to retail individual investors.

According to Reuters, the allocation, at least three times the usual retail slice, is aimed at keeping SpaceX stock steady after its listing, leveraging Musk's fans, many of whom are interested in investing in the IPO.

The structure of the SpaceX IPO moves away from the usual Wall Street playbook and underscores Musk’s determination to shape both who owns SpaceX and how its shares trade once public, people close to the development told Reuters.

Elon Musk's plan, which has been communicated to the Wall Street by SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen, also comes with an “unusually hands-on approach to choosing bankers”, according to the people cited by the news agency.

SpaceX is assigning some firms narrowly defined roles based on personal relationships and past ties rather than allowing them to broadly compete for investors, they said, adding that the plan is not final and could change.

As part of that effort, Musk has handpicked Bank of America to focus on domestic retail distribution, according to four people familiar with the matter and cited by Reuters.

SpaceX has not yet finalised the size or timing of the offering, which is expected to test investor appetite for what could be one of the largest IPOs in history.