JPMorgan eases approach on lending against shares to court AI’s new wealth

JPMorgan Chase is relaxing its approach to lending money against shares held by employees and early investors in companies that have recently gone public, as the US bank seeks to win clients from emerging tech giants.

JPMorgan’s typical policy is not to accept as collateral shares in a company that has gone public within the past 135 days. However, it told bankers ahead of SpaceX’s blockbuster initial public offering in June that it would lend against shares in Elon Musk’s rocket and AI company sooner, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bankers inside JPMorgan expect the lender to have a similar approach when Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, goes public, though no final decision has been made. JPMorgan earned $75mn from its role on the SpaceX listing.

JPMorgan’s move underscores the efforts asset managers are making to win business from the huge wealth being generated by the AI boom.

Its policy was already longer than the 30 days that broker-dealers generally wait to lend against shares when they worked on the IPO under US securities rules.

Other banks such as Goldman Sachs will typically not wait longer than the 30-day period before engaging in this type of lending, said people familiar with the matter. Goldman declined to comment.

JPMorgan said the bank’s policy remains unchanged. “Our practices exceed regulatory requirements, and we have always assessed transactions on a case-by-case, client-by-client basis, factoring in elements such as market liquidity,” it said.

Anthropic declined to comment. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

Top engineers at AI labs can earn millions and sometimes tens of millions of dollars, part of which is company stock.

In the second quarter, Morgan Stanley’s wealth management business took in more than $74bn in net new assets from IPOs, including SpaceX, through its work managing employee equity plans for companies. The bank has said this performance was “not a one-time hit” with a pipeline of future big stock market listings.

Some Anthropic employees are sitting on tens of millions of dollars. Anthropic was valued at $18bn in 2024, and was most recently valued at $965bn. The company said in June it had confidentially filed for an IPO and investors expect the AI start-up to float at a valuation of $2tn or more in October.

Borrowing against shares can be a more popular option than selling for wealthy individuals, to minimise tax impacts.

A crucial question for banks examining collateral quality is how easily it can be liquidated, and private shares are less easily tradeable than public stock. Even after a company has gone public, there can also be lock-up agreements that place restrictions on stock sales. Shares after an IPO can also be more volatile.

Nevertheless, the glut of highly valued tech companies going public represents an enormous opportunity for Wall Street groups looking to manage money for the newly wealthy.

Other wealth management firms have also been working to entice the employees of big AI groups before they go public, cutting fees and hiring staff around Silicon Valley in an attempt to win over workers at OpenAI and Anthropic before their IPOs turn out a new class of millionaires.

Additional reporting by Harriet Clarfelt