By Dawn Kopecki and Akash Sriram
NEW YORK, June 12 (Reuters) – The first day of SpaceX trading is over. Now, the parties begin.
At the “Top of the House” of JPMorgan’s $4 billion headquarters in midtown Manhattan on Friday, CEO Jamie Dimon will serve moon pies, space ice cream and custom cloud candy to SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell, CFO Brett Johnsen and 250 of the rocket maker’s employees to celebrate the company’s record-shattering, historic IPO, according to a person familiar with the festivities.
Downtown, in the heart of New York’s financial district, a group of venture capital investors were hosting a $30,000 rooftop party for 30 with A5 Wagyu beef sliders, Don Julio tequila, Macallan 18-year Scotch and Dom Pérignon champagne, a person familiar with that party’s preparations said. The ice cubes for the cocktails, this person said, have the company’s stylized “X” logo stamped into the ice.
The SpaceX IPO minted a fresh class of millionaires, paid banks hundreds of millions in fees, added billions in profits to early institutional investors and turned founder Elon Musk into the world’s first trillionaire. The festivities unfolded against a backdrop of slowing consumer spending and renewed concerns about inflation, underscoring the gap between Wall Street’s enthusiasm and Main Street’s unease about the economy.
At least 4,000 current and former SpaceX employees alone held equity stakes worth more than $1 million at the time of the IPO, according to estimates from Hill.com, a platform that facilitates trading in shares of private companies. Another 400 employees held stakes worth more than $100 million, it said.
“He (Musk) has long been reaching for the stars with his extra-terrestrial ambitions, and it appears plenty of investors share his enthusiasm for the future,” said Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club.
GREEN SNEAKERS
The Nasdaq stock exchange, which won the listing, broadcast a 120-foot image of Musk standing at the opening bell ceremony across its big screen in Times Square. Musk posted a photo on X of Morgan Stanley’s banking team, including CEO Ted Pick, co-president Dan Simkowitz and star technology banker Michael Grimes wearing matching green sneakers, nodding to the bank’s need to exercise the “greenshoe” option that allocates extra shares in case of extraordinary investor demand.
Banks involved in the IPO, which stand to make some $500 million in fees, have been hosting investor events and parties all week, people familiar with the festivities said.
At Goldman Sachs’s headquarters downtown, Co-Head of Global Banking Dan Dees hosted Johnsen and other SpaceX executives for a celebration after the IPO priced Thursday night, according to a person familiar with the event.
CEO David Solomon took to social media Friday to congratulate Musk and his team, saying how honored the bank was to serve as the “lead left bookrunner” on the deal, named for its placement on the company’s registration statement indicating its role as the lead underwriter.
SpaceX designs adorned party favors across town. Visitors at Goldman on Friday received asteroid-shaped macaroons. JPMorgan is lighting up the top of its 1,388-foot (423-meter) Park Avenue headquarters with SpaceX rocket launches to mark the bank’s collaboration with the company.
JPMorgan’s equities team rang their own bell on its trading floor when SpaceX hit the market before cutting into a custom made rocket cake for the team.
JPMorgan’s fête Friday night promises to be the biggest SpaceX celebration on Wall Street – an idea Dimon directly pitched to Musk a few months ago.
The IPO celebrations have been a weekslong affair at the investment bank, kicking off with Dimon’s interview with Musk on an investor call last Thursday for close to 4,000 bank clients, where the CEO called the enigmatic entrepreneur the “Edison of our time.” On Friday, artifacts from the moon landing were on display at the bank’s headquarters while the bank’s internal digital signage will feature SpaceX launch images.
(Reporting by Dawn Kopecki, Akash Sriram, Saeed Azhar and Tatiana Bautzer in New York; editing by David Gaffen)
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