Wall Street's investment banking giants are feting hopeful buyers of Elon Musk's SpaceX at splashy events that kicked off on Thursday, offering something most banks can't: access to the rocketmaker's top executives ahead of its blockbuster IPO next week.
Musk himself showed up at a lead event - virtually.
His futuristic IPO, which bases its lofty valuation on sci-fi concepts like colonizing Mars and data centers in space, has captured the imagination - and wallets - of Wall Street and investors clamoring for a piece of the action.
Bank of America, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are all hosting events over the next few days.
With plans to raise a record $75 billion, it would be the largest of all time. At an expected $1.75 trillion market capitalization, the company will immediately become one of the most valuable listed names worldwide.
Musk spoke to JPMorgan clients by video link at an event hosted by CEO Jamie Dimon on Thursday, in what a source familiar with the matter said was a last-minute addition to the event.
Asked by Dimon what prompted him to take SpaceX public now, Musk said: "We're embarking on a massive new growth phase, and we need capital for that."
Musk also said he felt "pretty good" about the company's revenue projections and that revenue had become "much more predictable" than earlier.
SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell and CFO Bret Johnsen attended JPMorgan's recently opened headquarters in person. Even Musk's mother, Maye, was in the room.
In the first such event for the bank at this scale, with around 3,500 clients tuned in, Dimon said JPMorgan was looking to treat "individual investors the same way institutions are treated."
JPMorgan also played a video of a SpaceX rocket launch on Thursday on repeat across wide screens at its headquarters along with the words "Go for Launch" projected several feet high across the lobby.
Bank of America, which is leading the retail distribution effort in the U.S., decked out the lobby at its midtown Manhattan headquarters with SpaceX rockets and other images for an event Thursday for wealth management clients, a person familiar with the matter said.
The event will be headed by Co-President Jim DeMare, who will interview SpaceX's Shotwell and Johnsen about the company's public trading debut, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. It was not clear if Musk would participate in the Bank of America event. The bank also plans to light the building's spire Thursday night to resemble a rocket ship taking off.
Bank of America's private bank and Merrill Lynch have invited more than 5,000 clients to market launch parties being hosted by the bank and streamed to offices across the U.S. as part of the Merrill presence.
On Monday, Morgan Stanley is hosting an event for its wealth management clients featuring SpaceX executives along with Kate Claassen, the lead banker in the IPO, and wealth management head Jed Finn.
It was not clear if Goldman Sachs was organizing an event similar to its well-heeled rivals for its wealth management clients. The bank is also showcasing SpaceX model rockets in two lobbies in its downtown Manhattan headquarters to mark the stock debut.
Typically, Goldman Sachs does offer large deals to its private wealth clients, according to people familiar with the matter.
Separately, Musk faced a setback on Thursday when S&P Global said it was not changing the requirements for entry into its major indices, effectively ruling out a swift entry for SpaceX into the benchmark S&P 500 index.
