In an October 14 report, Bloomberg said Bank of America was no longer in discussions for an overall-coordinator role in Moonshot AI’s potential Hong Kong IPO. Earlier talks did not produce a formal mandate, Bloomberg reported.
NeoTeo previously covered reported IPO plans for Moonshot AI and DeepSeek. Separate reporting on Moonshot now concerns the bank discussions and a shareholder dispute.
Reuters reported settlement discussions
On October 11, Reuters reported that Moonshot executives were discussing a settlement with Recurrent.ai and some of its investors. The dispute was in Hong Kong arbitration, which Reuters said had been underway since 2024. The talks concerned claims about Moonshot’s creation and ownership. Reuters reported that Recurrent received 9.5% of Moonshot’s original shares when the company was established, while Recurrent and some investors seek compensation equal to 10.5% of those shares.
| Reported item | Share of Moonshot’s original shares |
| Recurrent’s original allocation | 9.5% |
| Compensation sought by Recurrent and some investors | 10.5% |
One person cited by Reuters estimated that the claim could exceed $700 million, using Moonshot’s $30 billion valuation in a June 2026 fundraising round.
The allegations and responses
Recurrent and some investors accused Yang Zhilin and Zhang Yutao of establishing Moonshot without Recurrent board authorization, making false representations to Recurrent investors and benefiting at Recurrent’s expense. A lawyers’ letter described by Reuters also alleged that servers holding important language-model data were transferred from Recurrent to a Moonshot subsidiary without authorization in April 2023, and that other key data was deleted in September 2024 at Zhang Yutao’s instruction. Reuters said it could not independently determine whether the letter’s claims were accurate and noted that the letter offered no evidence for the server-transfer allegation. The letter also said Recurrent and some investors were considering a separate Cayman Islands legal action against Moonshot President Zhang Yutong.
Yang Zhilin had previously denied the allegations. In November 2024, David Morrison, senior partner at MinterEllison, which represents Yang Zhilin, Zhang Yutao and Moonshot, told Chinese media that the case lacked a legal and factual basis and that the firm would mount a defense, Reuters reported. Moonshot declined Reuters’ request for comment on its October report.
