--- title: "Before SpaceX IPO, investors in China secretly acquired stakes" url: https://daily.dev/posts/before-spacex-ipo-investors-in-china-secretly-acquired-stakes-xid6n4f27 source_url: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/06/before-spacex-ipo-investors-in-china-secretly-acquired-stakes type: article source: "Ars Technica" published: 2026-06-18T17:57:40.815Z updated: 2026-06-18T17:58:02.595Z tags: ["spacex", "ipo"] reading_time: 2 upvotes: 0 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Before SpaceX IPO, investors in China secretly acquired stakes **[Ars Technica](https://daily.dev/sources/arstechnica)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A ProPublica investigation reveals that investors with ties to Chinese military contractors and the Qatari royal family secretly acquired stakes in SpaceX while it was still private, through a US middleman firm called Tomales Bay Capital. At least a dozen investors from mainland China, Hong Kong, or Russia bought stakes ranging from $800,000 to $40 million between 2018 and 2021. One notable investor, David Su of Beijing VC firm MPCi, invested $15 million in 2020; his firm also backed SpaceX competitors, two of which were later sanctioned by the US government. SpaceX recently barred Chinese and Hong Kong investors from its record-breaking IPO — the largest ever — citing regulatory and compliance risks. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [SpaceX raises $75B in largest IPO ever, Japan gets $2.2B](https://daily.dev/posts/spacex-raises-75b-in-largest-ipo-ever-japan-gets-2-2b-v2tnwtyng) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Everyone wants a piece of SpaceX](https://daily.dev/posts/everyone-wants-a-piece-of-spacex-emjsuzzlj) · TechCentral · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [South Africans took a sizeable bite of SpaceX after historic IPO](https://daily.dev/posts/south-africans-took-a-sizeable-bite-of-spacex-after-historic-ipo-odqcxl2rh) · TechCentral · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The biggest IPO ever is also one of the riskiest](https://daily.dev/posts/the-biggest-ipo-ever-is-also-one-of-the-riskiest-gpsdoafkz) · TechCentral · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#spacex](https://daily.dev/tags/spacex), [#ipo](https://daily.dev/tags/ipo) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/before-spacex-ipo-investors-in-china-secretly-acquired-stakes-xid6n4f27)