SpaceX has set aside up to 5% of the shares offered in its initial public offering for purchase by "certain employees and related persons" through a direct stock subscription plan, according to a revised filing released on Monday. The offering is expected to raise a record amount of money, expected to be around $75 billion.
Earlier this year, when Musk merged his artificial intelligence startup xAI with SpaceX, he gave the latter a valuation of US$1.25 trillion. Historically, only two technology companies - Facebook and Alibaba - have a market capitalization of more than $100 billion on their first trading day on a U.S. exchange.
Through a direct stock subscription plan, a company can reserve a certain percentage of its issued shares for employees, customers, and even friends and family. SpaceX said in the filing that participants will be "selected at the discretion of company executives" and that these shares will not be subject to a lock-up period (lock-up period).
This provision allows some individuals to obtain benefits that are usually only available to large money managers with close relationships with IPO underwriters.
Several companies, including Airbnb, Uber and Rivian, have included direct stock subscription plans in their offerings. In 2010, when Musk led Tesla to complete its IPO, he reserved up to 1.28 million shares out of the 13.3 million shares sold. According to its prospectus, the shares are earmarked for sale "to business partners, directors, employees, and friends and family of our employees and Tesla customers who have received delivery of a sports car from Tesla."
SpaceX's road show may start this week, and the company is expected to be listed on Nasdaq as soon as June 12. Goldman Sachs has been eager to get the lead underwriter seat on the offering, followed by Morgan Stanley. However, the prospectus shows that the direct stock subscription plan will be managed by Morgan Stanley.
The company's revised IPO filing also disclosed details of the commercial relationship between SpaceX and Anthropic, a rival and customer of its AI unit.
Relevant disclosures clarify that a lucrative "Neocloud" deal for SpaceX may be terminated in just six months.
The prospectus states that SpaceX is leasing computing power to Anthropic at its Colossus and Colossus II data centers in the Memphis metropolitan area, which is equivalent to "approximately 325,000 Nvidia GPUs."
After an "initial three-month period," the agreement "may be terminated by either party upon 90 days' notice," the document said.
Under the agreement, Anthropic will pay SpaceX $1.25 billion per month from May to May 2029 after a two-month "ramp-up period" of lower fees.
Before the release of this revised document, Musk had posted on the company's social platform to reveal some previously unpublicized details.