Forbes: Ordinary investors are now being sold access to private OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX shares before the companies go public, through a private-market chain where access can be real, expensive, delayed, or fake.
The real market is messier because private companies tightly control who owns their shares, so buyers often do not receive direct stock but exposure through brokers, funds, or SPVs, which are pooled vehicles that hold shares on investors’ behalf.
Each layer can add fees, delays, resale limits, and legal uncertainty, so the investor may be buying a claim on access rather than clean ownership of the company.
The danger is that scarcity creates a perfect setting for middlemen to sell stories, promises, and paper structures that may not map cleanly to actual shares.
This market is less like buying a stock and more like buying a seat in a crowded waiting room where the door may open, stay locked, or turn out to be painted on the wall.
Both OpenAI and Anthropic have warned that they do not approve sales of stock to SPVs. In May the company specifically called out a number of “unauthorized” secondary markets, saying that “Any sale or transfer of Anthropic stock, or any interest in Anthropic stock, offered by these firms is void…”
---
forbes. com/sites/phoebeliu/2026/05/26/inside-the-murky-market-selling-pre-ipo-spacex-and-openai-shares/
