The launch tower at the SpaceX Launch Complex during the launch of pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, April 6, 2026.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
SpaceX has reserved up to 5% of the common stock in its initial public offering to buy out “certain employees and individuals” in the direct share program, according to an amended filing Monday.
The offering is expected to bring a record amount, in the range of 75 billion dollars, after SpaceX was named earlier this year for $ 1.25 trillion by Elon Musk, when he merged the company with xAI, his artificial intelligence startup. Only two technology companies – Facebook and Alibaba – have been valued at over $100 billion after their first day of trading on the US stock exchange.
With direct share plans, companies can set aside a portion of the contribution to employees, customers and even friends. SpaceX said in its filing that the participants “will be selected based on the discretion of our executive officers” and that the stock will not be subject to lock-up restrictions.
The offering allows individuals to receive the kind of benefits that are often enjoyed by large money managers who have close relationships with their IPO underwriters.
Companies including Airbnb, Uber again Rivian include direct sharing programs in their offerings. And when Musk leads Tesla through the IPO process in 2010, the electric car maker put up to 1.28 million of the 13.3 million shares it sold in the IPO to be “sold to business associates, directors, employees and friends and family members of our employees and Tesla customers who received delivery of the Tesla Roadster from Tesla,” according to its prospectus.
SpaceX’s road show could begin this week, and the company could debut on the Nasdaq as soon as June 12. Goldman Sachs has claimed the lead position on the offering, followed by Morgan Stanley. However, Morgan Stanley maintains a direct share plan, the prospectus said.
The company’s amended IPO filing also added details about SpaceX’s business relationship with Anthropic, now a customer and competitor in the company’s AI division.
The disclosure makes it clear that SpaceX’s lucrative neocloud deal could end in as little as six months.
The prospectus said SpaceX is leasing “computing capacity” from Anthropic equivalent to “approximately 325,000 NVIDIA GPUs” at its Colossus and Colossus II facilities in Greater Memphis.
After an “initial three-month period,” the filing said, the agreements entered into by the companies “may be terminated by either party upon 90 days’ notice.”
Those agreements include Anthropic paying SpaceX $1.25 billion a month until May 2029, starting after a two-month “increase” period in which it will pay the down payment.
Musk revealed some of the previously undisclosed details in a post on X, the company’s social media platform, before its redacted file was published.
On Monday, Anthropic said it filed its IPO prospectus privately with the Securities and Exchange Commission, setting up another potentially historic sale for investors.
WATCH: Ross Gerber on the upcoming SpaceX IPO
