But as The New York Times (NYT) reported Friday (April 3), access to the company’s long-awaited initial public offering (IPO) comes with a specific demand: Banks, lawyers and other advisers must subscribe to Grok, the AI chatbot from Musk’s xAI startup.

Some of the banks have agreed to spend millions on Grok subscriptions and have begun integrating it into their IT systems, the report said, citing sources familiar with the matter.

NYT noted that while banks find ways to accommodate companies going public, SpaceX is a unique case, as its IPO is expected to be one of the largest on record. The deal was expected to raise more than $50 billion at a valuation of upwards of $1 trillion, meaning banks could realize fees of more than $500 million for advising on the listing, the report added.

Sources told NYT that the banks’ purchase of Grok’s subscriptions came after Musk insisted they sign up. He also asked banks to advertise on social media site X, which is also part of Space X, sources said, adding that the multibillionaire was less insistent on this request.

Five banks are expected to take work on the IPO, the report said: Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.

SpaceX acquired xAI in February, a move that Musk has said will allow for solar-powered, space-based artificial intelligence, partially by using designs and strategies developed around SpaceX’s broadband satellite systems.

Meanwhile, research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that banks are increasingly embracing AI for a host of different uses.

For example the “2025 State of Fraud and Financial Crime in the United States” report, produced in collaboration with Block, found that 70% of financial institutions say AI allows them to blend proactive and reactive defenses against fraud.

More recently, PYMNTS looked at the way AI is helping banks make credit card rewards more personal.

“I think the real AI revolution in credit cards isn’t necessarily happening at checkout,” Jeanniey Walden, chief marketing and executive advisor at Rakuten Rewards, said in an interview with PYMNTS. “It’s happening in the offers feed.”

Historically, rewards programs were built around broad categories, such as travel, groceries or dining. While those structures were simple, they were created for a hypothetical “average” cardholder whose spending patterns hardly ever matched reality, Walden said.

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