By Echo Wang
March 13 (Reuters) - SpaceX and the banks underwriting its blockbuster IPO have chosen two law firms to provide legal advice on the deal, one of the first concrete steps companies take when preparing a public listing, two people familiar with the plans said.
Elon Musk's rocket-and-satellite company has hired Gibson Dunn to represent it throughout the process, according to one of the people, while the banks underwriting the deal have chosen Davis Polk & Wardwell, both people said. They
asked not to be identified because the process is confidential.
The confidential filing could come as soon as this month, one of the people said. A public listing of SpaceX at a hoped-for valuation of $1.75 trillion would make it one of the most highly valued companies in the world, and give public investors their first chance to buy shares in Musk’s closely held space company.
SpaceX, Gibson Dunn, and Davis Polk did not respond to requests for comment.
For a company, hiring its own legal advisers typically comes before it formally picks which investment banks will lead the IPO. Los Angeles-based Gibson Dunn advised SpaceX on its acquisition of xAI.
A successful SpaceX IPO could be one of the most lucrative public offerings ever for the banks on the deal.
The company has also been interviewing banks, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley for leading roles for the IPO, Reuters previously reported.
SpaceX acquired Musk's privately owned social media and artificial intelligence company xAI in early February in a deal that brought Musk’s rockets, Starlink satellites, the X social media platform and Grok AI chatbot under one roof, Reuters previously reported. It valued the combined company at $1.25 trillion at the time.
This year is shaping up to be a significant one for IPOs, with mega-offerings in the works from AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI. The Financial Times reported that Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is advising Anthropic, while the Information reported that Cooley and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz are working with OpenAI.
New York-based Davis Polk has worked on some of the largest U.S. IPOs, including Uber and Arm Holdings, and ranked No. 1 in capital markets league tables from Bloomberg and LSEG.
(Reporting by Echo Wang in New York. Editing by Dawn Kopecki and David Gaffen)
