WHAT SPACEX DIDN’T TELL INVESTORS
COMPANY’S IPO FILING SILENT ON ITALIAN CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION INTO MUSK ASSOCIATE WHO ALLEGEDLY OBTAINED CLASSIFIED DEFENSE DOCUMENTS TO SECURE $1.74 BILLION STARLINK CONTRACT
BY ROB WALDECK AND JOE FIONDA
SpaceX’s IPO filing on May 20th failed to disclose an ongoing Italian criminal investigation into Andrea Stroppa, Musk’s representative in Italy, involving the alleged trading of subcontracts for classified government documents obtained to give SpaceX a leg up in winning a €1.5 billion contract to provide Starlink satellite communications to the Italian government. On October 11, 2024, Rome prosecutors seized Stroppa’s electronic devices and placed him on the Register of Suspects on suspicion of corruption. Prosecutors have since refined the charges — to revealing state secrets — while continuing the investigation of the underlying conduct in which classified government documents were allegedly passed to Stroppa to give SpaceX an advantage in the procurement process in exchange for promises of subcontracting opportunities.
The case, first reported by The (b)(7)(D) in March 2025, remains active — Italian authorities conducted a second set of raids in March 2026, less than two months before SpaceX filed its IPO. Italian prosecutors have sought Stroppa’s communications with SpaceX owner Elon Musk. Neither Musk nor SpaceX has been charged in the investigation.
In addition, Stroppa is under investigation for vehicular homicide in Italy stemming from a January 2026 accident that killed a pedestrian. Neither investigation was disclosed by SpaceX in its SEC filings.
SEC regulations require companies to disclose material information to investors, including legal and business risks facing the company. Law and finance professors told The (b)(7)(D) that in some cases this could create risks of SEC action or lawsuits by investors who relied on statements in the SEC Form S-1 filing.
PERSONAL CONNECTIONS
SpaceX’s connections to Stroppa are personal to Musk. Stroppa came to Musk’s attention as a teenager, after being placed under investigation for participating in computer attacks with Anonymous Italy. He subsequently reinvented himself as a computer security researcher, focusing on fake accounts on social media platforms including Twitter. Stroppa told Il Foglio that after Musk began citing his work on Twitter, he sent the SpaceX CEO an email. Musk then called Stroppa and a friendship was born.
In 2022, Stroppa began working on security issues for Twitter. He later took on a role at SpaceX, describing himself as an “advisor for SpaceX and Starlink.” “I study projects. I talk to technicians. I talk to companies, I explain how Musk’s products work and why those companies should become Starlink customers,” Stroppa told Il Foglio. He described contacting “Italian institutions and the state” as part of his SpaceX portfolio.
SpaceX’s connections to Italy are also personal to Elon Musk and go through Stroppa to the country’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. In 2023 Stroppa suggested to Musk that he visit Italy and arranged the billionaire’s meeting that June with Meloni. Around the same time, the Italian government began negotiating with SpaceX for the company to provide encrypted communications to the Italian state.
A second, larger proposed contract — separate from the €1.5 billion secure communications deal — involved Starlink providing public satellite broadband internet to areas in Italy where fiber optic companies had not yet reached, funded through a portion of Italy’s €3.6 billion EU COVID recovery fund.
The Musk-Meloni relationship deepened in 2024. On September 23rd, Musk presented the Italian Prime Minister with the Atlantic Council’s Global Citizen Award in New York, describing Meloni as “someone who is even more beautiful inside than outside.” Meloni called Musk a “precious genius.”
Meloni assigned her personal military advisor, General Franco Federici, to take control of the SpaceX proposal.
THE INSIDER
One of the officers assigned to the Starlink project was Italian Navy Frigate Captain Antonio Masala. Masala worked as a staff officer at the Defense General Staff in Rome, overseeing C4I Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence systems — giving him direct access to classified military IT procurement and the government’s internal Starlink deliberations.
According to Italian news reports, prosecutors assert that before connecting with Stroppa, Masala had been working with two Italian businessmen to help rig government contracting bids, Massimo Rossi, CEO of Italware and Digital Value S.p.A., and Cristiano Rufini, the chairman of Olidata S.p.A.
Italian media reported that prosecutors alleged that Masala and Rossi worked together in January 2024 to rig a bid to restructure the IT infrastructure of the Italian defense establishment, with Masala providing Rossi with inside information In exchange, according to Italian outlet Il Sole 24 Ore prosecutors claim Masala received payment on false invoices worth € 1 million. Il Sole 24 Ore also reported that prosecutors alleged that Masala helped rig a separate bid for an Italian Navy software contract, receiving an additional €188,000 in false invoices.
According to Italy’s Il Fatto Quotidiano, prosecutors allege that beginning in April 2024, the Masala group sought to obtain subcontracts under the pending proposal to provide Starlink secure satellite communications for Italy’s military, police, and embassies. According to Italian state broadcaster RAI News and the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano, Masala approached Stroppa. RAI News reported that investigators allege that Masala offered Stroppa inside information on the Italian government’s deliberations regarding the SpaceX proposal, which Start Magazine alleged were in exchange for a promise to name Olidata and a second company, Vipa Impianti S.r.L. as subcontractors for SpaceX. According to Il Fatto Quotidiano, prosecutors further claim that Masala passed Stroppa at least four government documents and inside information from meetings of the Italian Defense Cabinet and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the SpaceX proposal.
Reporting in Il Fatto Quotidiano, claimed that a wiretap recorded on June 5, 2024 captured Masala instructing a co-conspirator that in any presentation prepared by Stroppa, “Olidata must never appear.” The precaution was not incidental: Il Sole 24 Ore reported that Masala’s wife held Olidata shares worth approximately €3.1 million, and the company’s inclusion in a Starlink deal would have increased the value of her stake.
Il Fatto Quotidiano reported that Stroppa followed Masala’s instructions. In the same conversation, Masala told Stroppa that “within the year they could manage to reach an agreement for the whole country, or if things drag on, they would try to activate contracts for individual clients, such as the Navy,” an apparent reference to the larger national broadband proposal.
According to reports from Il Fatto Quotidiano, investigators alleged that on August 29, 2024, Masala attended a meeting where he obtained a copy of a confidential Foreign Ministry document listing the questions and doubts officials intended to raise about the Starlink proposal. Prosecutors claim Masala passed the document to Stroppa, telling him it “must not circulate, because it is a ministry document… it is truly confidential, internal.” Stroppa replied: “I’m happy… we’re a few days ahead of schedule.”
THE END OF THE SCHEME
On October 14, 2024, the entire bid-rigging scheme collapsed. According to Start Magazine, Italy’s financial and tax police, the Guardia di Finanza, arrested Paolino Iorio, a director of the Italian state-owned procurement corporation Sogei, in the act of receiving a €15,000 bribe from Rossi. Il Sole 24 Ore reported that the GdF had been following the activities of Iorio, Rossi, Rufini, Masala, Stroppa and others as part of a multi-year investigation into alleged corruption in government contracting. According to Il Fatto Quotidiano, GdF police raided Stroppa’s home, seized his computers and announced that they had placed him on the Register of Suspects. Iorio and Rossi have since pleaded guilty to corruption and bribery charges.
The (b)(7)(D) spoke with Stefano Maffei, a researcher in law at the University of Parma about the sanctions against Stroppa. Maffei described the Register of Suspects as a list of those under investigation. Maffei told The (b)(7)(D) that being placed on the Register of Suspects is preliminary to being indicted.
Last March, talks between the Italian government and SpaceX over a €1.5 billion contract to provide encrypted Starlink broadband services to Italy’s military, police, and diplomatic corps collapsed. Recent news reports indicated that Musk’s role in the Trump administration and his comments had provoked a sharp backlash in Italy.
On March 26, 2026 the Guardia di Finanza expanded the investigation — raiding the Italian Ministry of Defense, RFI, Terna, and Polo Strategico Nazionale. According to RAI News at that point the investigation into Stroppa was still proceeding under a corruption theory. However, fifty-five days later, on May 20, 2026, Il Fatto Quotidiano reported that the initial corruption charge against Stroppa had been dismissed and replaced with revealing state secrets, suggesting that the downgrade of the charges had occurred in the last weeks before SpaceX issued its IPO.
NO DISCLOSURE
Despite the fact that Stroppa’s alleged conduct was designed to help SpaceX receive a €1.5 billion Italian government contract, the company’s May 20, 2026 S-1 IPO filing did not disclose the ongoing criminal case. The (b)(7)(D) contacted Professor Ann Lipton of the University of Colorado, who said that an issuer like SpaceX has to disclose a criminal investigation “if a government action is being considered, that needs to be disclosed, but not if the only penalty will be damages payments in small amounts.” Lipton added that companies like SpaceX are also “required to disclose material risks facing the business, and significant areas of uncertainty that could have a material impact on revenues.”
SEC Regulation S-K controls disclosures required for IPO filings. Both legal proceedings and risk factors are required to be disclosed if they are material to a reasonable investor’s understanding of the business and its risks.
One of these risks is prosecution in the United States under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Under the Act is a federal crime for a U.S. company or individual to bribe a foreign official. In addition, the Federal Acquisition Regulations provide for the suspension or permanent debarment for companies who are convicted of “bribery, falsification or destruction of records, making false statements, tax evasion, violating Federal criminal tax laws, or receiving stolen property.” Even without a conviction, federal officials could suspend a contractor upon adequate evidence of the contractor’s “commission of embezzlement, theft, forgery, bribery, falsification or destruction of records, making false statements, tax evasion, violating Federal criminal tax laws, or receiving stolen property.”
SpaceX’s businesses are highly dependent on U.S. government funds, with the company having $22 billion in Federal contracts. Trump’s hot-and-cold relationship with Musk could magnify these risks.
The (b)(7)(D) spoke to S-1 disclosure expert Professor Michelle Lowry of Drexel University. Lowry told The (b)(7)(D) that “companies can end up on either side of the disclosure line. Failure to disclose can open a company to lawsuits. Companies have different perspectives on disclosure. Some companies disclose everything to protect their position, others hide information.” “Most companies over-disclose risks, not under-disclose.”
The risks of “failure to disclose opens companies up to a Section 11 lawsuit.” Lowry said “Section 11 suits are based on the offer price.”
Lowry said Musk’s position politically and as a cultural figure “could absolutely influence whether or not he decides to disclose (or not disclose) the Italian bribery case.” Lowry added “it is definitely a possibility. His name is on there [the SpaceX IPO].”
On May 20, 2026, the same day Il Fatto Quotidiano reported that Italian prosecutors had dismissed the corruption charges against Stroppa and replaced them with revealing state secrets, SpaceX filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing ran to hundreds of pages. It did not mention Stroppa, Italy, or the investigation. The IPO’s roadshow began last Wednesday.
SpaceX did not return a request for comment. Stroppa could not be reached for comment. In response to prior reporting by The (b)(7)(D) on the case, a lawyer for Rufini, Roberto De Vita, said: “The so-called ‘Starlink file’ to date has not led to the identification of any evidence of incorrect conduct in relations with the companies of Elon Musk or Mr. Cristiano Rufini and Olidata … the professional, personal and as president of the company behavior of Mr. Rufini and his actions in institutional relations have always been characterized by transparency and fairness.”