Gibson Dunn’s Holmes to Help Steer SpaceX’s Record-Setting IPO

Hillary Holmes is the Gibson Dunn partner SpaceX has chosen to prepare a record-setting initial public offering, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Holmes is the co-leader of the Gibson Dunn capital markets practice who has aided high-profile deals for clients including Coterra Energy Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp., and Nasdaq Inc. Two people requested anonymity to discuss her SpaceX role, which hasn’t been publicly disclosed.

Holmes said in an interview March 12, before Bloomberg Law learned of her role in the SpaceX IPO, that her firm was “in the spotlight at the center stage” of work in Texas involving capital formation, energy and infrastructure, and space innovation. “It’s really a good place to be,” she said.

Holmes, Gibson Dunn, and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment. Reuters reported March 13 that SpaceX hired Gibson Dunn and Davis Polk & Wardwell to advise on the IPO process. Davis Polk didn’t respond to a comment request.

Elon Musk’s company is expected to raise as much as $50 billion in a public offering this summer that could value the company at more than $1.75 trillion, Bloomberg News has reported.

After working at Baker Botts for more than a decade, Holmes joined Gibson Dunn in 2017 and became one of the founding partners of the Houston office the firm opened that year. In addition to capital markets, she practices in securities regulation and corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions and energy and infrastructure.

Holmes said she has since been part of the firm’s “very strategic” build-out of its securities regulation and corporate governance practices and the hiring of “homegrown” partners. A self-described fourth-generation Texan, she said her firm aims to help the state “with what it needs from a corporate growth standpoint, capital formation standpoint, being the center of America’s future in terms of prosperity.”

That translates into serving clients who are “building things” and “coming up with new ideas” and “going boldly new places, trying new things,” she said in the March 12 interview. Holmes and her firm at the time of the interview declined to comment on whether she was involved in the SpaceX IPO.

Gibson Dunn on Feb. 2 announced a team of corporate partners, including Holmes, Tull Florey and Andrew Kaplan, guided Coterra on its sale to Devon Energy Corp. for about $21.4 billion in stock, one of the largest oil and gas deals in years.

That same day, Gibson Dunn said George Sampas in New York and Robert Little in Dallas, who are co-chairs at the firm’s M&A group, led SpaceX’s acquistion of artificial intelligence startup xAI. Holmes was among six partners listed on the corporate team.

Gibson Dunn on March 9 said Holmes led associates Muriel Hague and Anna Strong in serving as counsel in the launch of Nasdaq Texas, the new national securities exchange. One day later, the firm listed Holmes as part of a three-member corporate team, including partners Gerry Spedale and Ronald Mueller, to represent Exxon Mobil’s reincorporation in Texas.