SpaceX’s IPO barred China buyers after offshore stakes surfaced

New records tied to a Delaware dispute show that investors with addresses in mainland China, Hong Kong and Russia acquired stakes in SpaceX while it was still private—often through a U.S. middleman. The disclosures arrive as SpaceX barred investors from China

The night SpaceX went public, the company drew a line in the sand for who could buy.

Last week. SpaceX barred investors from China and Hong Kong from purchasing shares in its initial public offering. citing “regulatory and compliance risks.” The move landed with particular force because SpaceX’s business has long depended on sensitive U.S. government work. including making spy satellites for the Pentagon—work tied to the kind of technology and strategy that raises alarm when foreign money gains influence.

For years, there has been talk about Chinese investment in the rocket company. But new details—drawn from a private investor list obtained in connection with a Delaware case—map how some of that money entered SpaceX before the IPO and through whom.

The investor list. unsealed this month after ProPublica moved to make the records public with help from attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the law firm Shaw Keller. shows at least a dozen investors with addresses in mainland China. Hong Kong or Russia who acquired stakes in SpaceX between 2018 and 2021. The investments were relatively small compared with SpaceX’s size—ranging from $800. 000 to $40 million—but they were made through a middleman firm in the U.S. called Tomales Bay Capital.

One investment listed came from an entity owned by David Su, co-founder of Beijing venture capital firm MPCi. Su’s entity invested $15 million in a SpaceX fund in 2020, according to the investor list. MPCi has also worked with Chinese government investment funds. Last year. the Ministry of Science and Technology in China named Su’s firm as a partner in a state-backed effort to develop the country’s aerospace industry.

U.S. officials have long argued that China uses investment in sensitive industries in ways that can support espionage and provide access to cutting-edge technology. SpaceX says it took a compliance-heavy approach to the IPO. and the new documents sharpen the central question: who gets the chance to learn what.

Sarah Bauerle Danzman, an Indiana University professor who has worked for the State Department scrutinizing foreign investments, put it plainly. “If an investor has conflicts of interests with other companies in China — if they could feed that information to competitors — it could be a national security concern.”.

MPCi denies any wrongdoing. In a statement. MPCi said Su “has not received any nonpublic information of SpaceX.” The statement described Su as “a Singapore citizen who resides in Singapore. ” adding: “MPCi is a brand name with different teams and funds. Mr. Su is responsible for the US dollar funds.” A 2024 profile of Su says he “spent almost 100 per cent of his time in China over the last 20 years.”.

Tomales Bay Capital, through a lawyer, also rejects the idea of improper access. In a statement. a lawyer said the firm “has not provided any non-public. sensitive information regarding SpaceX to investors.” The lawyer said the investors were passive limited partners and “Aside from fund financials that include quarterly valuations. Tomales Bay’s investors have not received any further information regarding SpaceX.”.

Ryan Stonerock. the lawyer. went further. saying “The vast majority. if not all. of the investors included on the unsealed Tomales Bay investor list are not citizens of any foreign adversary. including Russia or China. ” and that none are agents of Russia or China. He added that some investors “may have mailing addresses listed” in Russia or China but do not live there. saying they are “citizens and residents of the United States or other countries that are not foreign adversaries.”.

SpaceX did not respond to questions.

Underneath the denials is the structure of how private deals can turn into influence long before a company is public. Tomales Bay Capital is run by an investor named Iqbaljit Kahlon. who has long been close to SpaceX’s leadership and even involved in company operations. SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen. who has worked at SpaceX for 15 years. testified that Kahlon “has been with the company in one form or fashion longer than I have.”.

Before SpaceX went public, Kahlon built a business acting as a middleman for investors seeking to add the rocket company to their portfolio. His firm regularly bought SpaceX stock, packaged it into investment funds, and charged fees to investors who bought pieces of those funds.

In a 2021 pitch to a potential investor in China. Kahlon promised “special access to SpaceX.” The pitch included quarterly updates on the company’s business development. “visits to SpaceX. and the opportunities to interview with Space X’s CFO. ” according to meeting minutes later included in court records.

That promise sits uneasily next to SpaceX’s IPO decision. The company’s IPO last week was the largest ever, making Musk the world’s first trillionaire. But after investors were barred from China and Hong Kong, the question turns from who could buy to who already had.

The investor list is detailed enough to show both identifiable names and opaque entities.

Among the investors on the Kahlon ledger that are easier to identify are the Indian politician Abhishek Singhvi, Betsy DeVos, the former U.S. secretary of education, and a British Virgin Islands company owned by Indonesian billionaires. Others are shell companies whose ultimate owners remain hidden.

One example is a Delaware LLC called HAL9001 Partners Fund I, which invested roughly $10 million in a SpaceX fund in 2020. Incorporation documents for HAL9001 were signed by venture capitalist Roman Sobachevskiy. The Treasury Department recently fined a company that was co-owned by Sobachevskiy hundreds of millions of dollars for managing a different investment on behalf of a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Sobachevskiy has not been personally accused of wrongdoing.

A Tomales Bay Capital spokesperson said the oligarch “had no involvement with the investment.” Sobachevskiy did not respond to questions, including who put up the money for the SpaceX investment.

The documents also show a connection between SpaceX and Qatar. Funds affiliated with Bracket Capital—an investment firm with offices in Los Angeles. London and Qatar—invested about $48 million through a series of deals from 2017 through 2020. according to the records. Bracket has money from the Qatari royal family, according to an email that Kahlon sent to SpaceX’s CFO.

The ledger also lists Doha, Qatar, as the address for a mysterious entity called AM FIG Cayman Limited, which invested around $10 million in 2020.

The records do not specify whether Bracket’s investments were made for the Qatari royal family or for another client. In 2021. as Kahlon solicited backers for another SpaceX deal. he texted a Bracket employee: “At the end we can just send Yalda to talk to big guy. We need a bail out lol.” Yalda Aoukar is Bracket’s co-founder. and it is unclear whether the “big guy” refers to a member of the royal family and what Kahlon meant by “a bail out.” Bracket did not respond to requests for comment.

Taken together, these stakes were tiny percentages of SpaceX—but they came at a moment when SpaceX’s value exploded. The company’s valuation grew from $33.3 billion in 2019 to $2.7 trillion as of Wednesday morning, according to the documents.

Last year, ProPublica reported on SpaceX’s unusual approach to accepting money from Chinese investors. Testimony in the Delaware case says SpaceX allowed Chinese investors to buy stakes in SpaceX as long as the money was routed through the Cayman Islands or other offshore secrecy hubs.

SpaceX’s latest move—excluding China and Hong Kong buyers from the IPO—doesn’t erase those earlier arrangements. It makes the contrast stark: after building a private ownership web that included investors across China. Hong Kong and Russia. the company decided the public offering required stricter gates.

Whether the new records prove improper access remains disputed. What they do show is how easily foreign investment channels can intertwine with companies built on U.S. military contracts—until compliance. and the risk of what might be learned. forces a company to rethink who gets in at the moment of sale.

SpaceX IPO China investment Tomales Bay Capital Iqbaljit Kahlon David Su MPCi Bracket Capital Qatar royal family foreign investment regulation U.S. national security