Goldman Sachs' "incredibly charismatic" woman beat Morgan Stanley's allegedly "dorky" man
Kim Posnett, co-head of investment banking at Goldman Sachs, has a reputation for being "incredibly charismatic." Now it seems that Posnett is so charismatic that she has come between Elon Musk and the only banker he found tolerable.
Posnett, who was previously Goldman's head of technology, media and telecommunications banking, is running the Goldman Sachs team which will reportedly lead the line-up for SpaceX's coming IPO. In doing so, she has displaced Morgan Stanley from the top spot.
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Morgan Stanley's team is being led by Michael Grimes, its chair of investment banking. Grimes left Morgan Stanley to work for the Trump administration in 2025, before going back to the bank in February 2026. During his previous three decades there, Grimes ran Morgan Stanley's technology banking business and became famous for working on huge technology IPOs like Facebook, Airbnb and Uber.
Morgan Stanley really likes Grimes. At the time of his 2025 departure, Grimes was on a $10.5m salary with $56m of deferred stock bonuses accumulated over the previous three years. Speaking to the Financial Times upon his return, Morgan Stanley said Grimes would "continue to manage and build relationships with many of our most important global corporate, venture, private equity and sovereign clients.”
Those clients include Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002 and who presumably had a key role in selecting Posnett's team to lead the imminent SpaceX IPO. Musk and Grimes have history: they worked together on Musk's $44bn acquisition of Twitter. In February, the Wall Street Journal described Grimes as one of the only bankers Musk could tolerate. When Grimes returned to Morgan Stanley three months ago, it was therefore widely expected that the key role on the SpaceX IPO would be his.
It's not. Business Insider reports that Morgan Stanley is still working as a lead bank on the SpaceX IPO, just not as the lead. Instead, it is reportedly the stabilization agent, tasked with supporting the stock price after the IPO.
It's not clear why Goldman Sachs won. Grimes, who has a background in computer engineering, seems a bit like a tech entrepreneur. He's "dorky" according to a friend who spoke to the WSJ. That same friend added, “He doesn’t talk like a banker. He isn’t slick.” Grimes is immersed in new technologies. During his brief time with the government, Grimes was said to upset people with interview questions like, "What’s four to the fourth power?."
Posnett seems polished by comparison. She was briefly a Hollywood actress and has said this experience taught her how to tell a story. Posnett is popular with Goldman Sachs' CEO David Solomon. Posnett was also popular with Goldman Sachs' former head of investment banking Greg Lemkau. It was Lemkau who ascribed the incredible charisma to her.
Somewhere along the line, Musk may have been persuaded by this incredible charisma too. Either that, or he just wanted a change.
SpaceX intends to raise $75bn; underwriting fees on the deal could be $4bn or more.
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