SpaceX executives and employees ring the opening bell at the Nasdaq MarketSite to celebrate the launch of SpaceX’s initial public offering in New York on June 12, 2026.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Thousands of SpaceX employees who have become sudden millionaires are redefining the wealth management business with their combined wealth.
As CNBC reported earlier this week, more than 100 SpaceX employees with combined assets between $1 billion and $5 billion have joined forces to negotiate better terms with wealth management companies. Anticipating inflation from the initial public offering on Friday, the group signed an agreement with registered investment advisor Choreo for wealth management services at a lower than industry standard.
The deal, with fees starting at 0.5% and falling as the group’s assets grow, represents a breakthrough in the wealth management industry, which typically charges clients based on their individual assets.
Choreo’s CEO, Jason Van de Loo, said the SpaceX IPO is a rare opportunity to build lasting relationships with a large group of customers whose fortunes are about to explode.
“This is a unique revolutionary event,” said Van de Loo. “We don’t see events like this very often. Most investors have decades of building wealth. When you get a moment like this, it’s almost like a huge fortune, or like winning a lottery ticket. It’s not easy to wrap your head around the transactional parts of that event.”
The size of the Choreo group is likely to grow over time, and the option is made available to employees of other companies that will participate in the IPO. Yet the battle to control the tens of billions of dollars in newly liquid wealth held by SpaceX employees is beginning.
Private banks, wire houses, trust companies and other registered investment advisors are all sending teams and holding events in California, Texas and Florida hoping to win their business.
Jamie Battmer, chief investment officer at RIA firm Creative Planning, said the firm has many SpaceX clients. The biggest question they face, he said, is whether to sell any of their stock.
SpaceX equity — often given in the form of restricted stock — represents up to 90% of the wealth of most SpaceXers, Battmer said. With so much focus on potentially volatile stocks, advisors often advise clients to diversify.
SpaceXers, however, tend to be deep believers in the company’s future and don’t want to sell any stock. Battmer said his firm helps these clients with tax-free indexing or other derivative strategies. They also seek help with estate planning and philanthropy, including setting up institutional trusts and donor-advised funds.
Most SpaceXers are engineers or technicians by training, so they focus on the details of how wealth management products work. Yet while they are highly educated, many of them are new to the often complicated world of wealth.
“Because it’s an engineering team, these are the people who do a better job of dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s,” Battmer said. “But the disability that comes with a seismic change in your value is very dangerous and needs to be addressed. Often highly skilled professionals can make wrong decisions.”
SpaceXers also have unique ways of dealing with their financial challenges. Like many aerospace and high-tech companies, SpaceX’s culture is built around the whiteboard and problem solving.
Bill Dramis, a senior banker at JP Morgan Private Bank who works with high-net-worth executives and employees of aerospace and defense companies in Southern California, said that, in general, engineers tend to make a habit of solving group problems in wealth management.
“Most of these people we meet are incredibly intelligent and like to set an example for their peers,” he said. “That’s how they grew up and built their knowledge base. So now, ‘I have this problem set up to deal with wealth creation, tax implications, charitable giving and charitable giving.’ And they want to do that with their peers. They put it on the table and they test the pressure.”
SpaceXers also rely on artificial intelligence for wealth advice. Consultants say SpaceX employees often come to meetings with recommendations from Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
“What’s interesting to us so far is finding creative ways to use AI as part of those conversations,” Van de Loo said. “I naturally think about this crew, the first instinct is to ask Claude, ‘What should I do?’
“They bring that output into discussions with our team, and we’re able to say, ‘Okay, that’s where that output works, but that’s where it can be a product-specific solution, not a programming solution,'” he said.
Most of all, though, SpaceXers want wealth advisors who can really teach them.
“We are here to advise people who are entering these situations for the first time,” said Dramis. “A lot of the questions we get are, ‘Help me check the conditions, trades.’ We have a long history of helping clients manage and continue to manage focus as their wealth. “
