Elon Musk Denies SpaceX IPO Snub of Robinhood and SoFi - Retail Access Battle Heats Up

Elon Musk has directly refuted claims that retail investors would be locked out of SpaceX's historic IPO, labeling the rumors as 'false' after pressure mounted from the 'dumb money' community on social media platform X. The debunkment follows intense speculation that Morgan Stanley's E*Trade would handle sales for small U.S. investors, with retail initially promised an unprecedented 30% allocation—far above the typical 5-10% range—sparking fears of exclusion from what analysts predict could be a $75 billion offering valuing SpaceX near $1.75 trillion. Musk confirmed he is 'talking about it' with Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, as every detail of access to one of Wall Street's most anticipated debuts remains under intense scrutiny.

SpaceX builds a massive bank group to handle global investor demand in blockbuster IPO

SpaceX is also building a large group of banks to run the IPO. At least 21 banks are working on the deal as of Tuesday. This is one of the biggest underwriting groups seen in recent years. The listing is being handled under the internal name Project Apex and is expected to happen in June.

Five banks are leading the process as main bookrunners for SpaceX in this IPO, according to Reuters. These are Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup. Alongside them, 16 more banks have joined in smaller roles. About half of these names had not been publicly linked to the deal before.

The additional banks include Allen & Co, Barclays, BTG Pactual, Deutsche Bank, ING Groep, Macquarie, Mizuho, Needham & Co, Raymond James, Royal Bank of Canada, Societe Generale, Banco Santander, Stifel, UBS, Wells Fargo, and William Blair.

Each bank is expected to focus on different parts of the offering. Some will handle big institutional money. Others will deal with wealthy clients. Some will focus on retail investors and different regions around the world. The setup is not final yet and more banks could still be added.

Large IPO groups like this are not new for deals of this size. Arm Holdings worked with close to 30 banks when it went public in 2023. Alibaba also used a very large group during its 2014 listing, which still stands as one of the biggest IPOs ever recorded.

“Some SpaceX investors worry whether they actually hold the company’s stock, which has been sold through the opaque secondary market for private ​company shares,” said Reuters.

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