The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Meyer Global Management and its chief executive, Owen E.H. Meyer, with defrauding investors who bought into private funds holding pre-IPO stakes in companies such as SpaceX and OpenAI, alleging that client money was diverted to personal expenses including a night at a strip club.
The charges
The enforcement action, filed Wednesday, accuses the firm and its CEO of a pattern of misconduct stretching back to December 2021, during which investor capital was repeatedly misused and investors were misled about the security and performance of their holdings.
The money trail
Meyer Global collected at least $18.5 million from about 100 investors between 2019 and 2024 through funds that held pre-IPO stakes, according to the complaint. The regulator alleges that at least $1.27 million of that capital was siphoned off in three separate episodes to fund Meyer’s lifestyle, personal investments and obligations to other advisory clients.
The IPO boom backdrop
The case arrives as the SEC, under Chair Paul Atkins, who took over in April 2025, has been pushing to lower barriers to public listings. Atkins told CNBC on Tuesday that the agency is trying to “make IPOs great again,” pointing to a surge in activity: 208 initial public offerings in the first half of 2026, a 16 percent increase over the same period a year earlier, which together raised more than $137 billion, up 407 percent from the $27 billion collected in the first six months of 2025.
The warning
The SEC’s asset management unit chief, Corey A. Schuster, framed the charges as a warning that the allure of exclusive pre-IPO access can be exploited to target retail investors. Meyer Global did not respond to requests for comment.