The extraordinary investor demand surrounding SpaceX’s record-breaking initial public offering has reverberated far beyond Wall Street, reaching South Korea’s foreign exchange market and contributing to one of the sharpest episodes of pressure on the Korean won this year.

However, a major source of that strain now appears to be fading.

According to a source familiar with foreign exchange transactions, cited by Reuters, the estimated $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion in dollar purchases linked to South Korean participation in SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO has reached its final stages, easing concerns that the transaction would continue to weigh on the local currency.

The development comes as SpaceX moves toward pricing what is expected to be the largest IPO in history. Reuters reported on Tuesday that the Elon Musk-led aerospace and satellite company has attracted more than $250 billion in investor orders, more than three times the $75 billion it seeks to raise, and one of the strongest displays of investor appetite ever seen in global capital markets.

“There was significant interest in how much dollar demand the SpaceX IPO would generate in the dollar-won foreign exchange market. The volume itself sits around $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion,” the source said.

“However, the process has been split and is nearly complete, so there won’t be downward pressure on the won on the FX market going forward. The supply and demand issues related to this have been resolved.”

The comments offered some relief to market participants who have watched the Korean currency come under sustained pressure in recent weeks.

The won strengthened following the report, gaining 0.56% to trade at 1,524.1 per dollar during afternoon trading. The currency had earlier been pushed to its weakest level in 17 years as institutional investors and wealthy retail investors scrambled to secure dollars needed to participate in SpaceX’s pre-IPO allocation process.

The episode serves as an example of the global reach of mega-capital raisings tied to artificial intelligence and space infrastructure companies. While IPOs have historically been concentrated within equity markets, the scale of SpaceX’s offering has created ripple effects across currency markets, bond markets, and portfolio allocations worldwide.

South Korean investors have emerged as some of the most enthusiastic international buyers of high-profile U.S. technology and growth stocks in recent years. The country’s retail investors, often referred to as “ants” for their collective market influence, have poured billions of dollars into overseas equities, particularly U.S. technology names linked to artificial intelligence.

SpaceX’s listing appears to have intensified that trend. The estimated $1.5 billion conversion demand may appear modest by global standards, but it had an outsized impact on South Korea’s currency market because of the relative size of daily trading volumes.

The dollar-won spot market averages roughly $14 billion in daily turnover, making it more vulnerable to sudden bursts of demand than deeper currency markets such as the euro-dollar or dollar-yen pairs. As a result, a single large transaction tied to a highly anticipated IPO was sufficient to exert noticeable downward pressure on the won, even as South Korea’s external economic position remained strong.

The pressure came despite the country recording a near-record current account surplus of $28.3 billion in April, a figure that would ordinarily support the local currency. The disconnect highlights how capital flows linked to investment demand can sometimes overwhelm traditional economic fundamentals in the short term.

The won remains among Asia’s weakest-performing currencies this year, having lost roughly 5% against the U.S. dollar despite strong semiconductor exports and robust external balances.

Authorities have responded by stepping up oversight of foreign exchange activity. In a significant move, the Bank of Korea and the Financial Supervisory Service announced plans to conduct joint inspections of major foreign exchange banks for the first time in 14 years. The review is aimed at identifying any attempts to manipulate exchange rates or exploit periods of market stress for profit.

SpaceX’s offering is widely expected to serve as the opening act for a series of enormous listings that could include AI leaders OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as other technology firms seeking access to public markets. Together, these companies could add several trillion dollars in market value to global equity markets over the coming years, attracting capital from institutional and retail investors around the world.

While the easing of SpaceX-related foreign exchange demand removes one immediate source of pressure on the won, it also offers a preview of the challenges that could emerge as investors increasingly shift capital toward a new generation of technology giants dominating global markets.

In the bustling tech hub of Hangzhou, 26-year-old contractor Liu watched her workload shrink dramatically earlier this year. Her employer at a major Chinese internet company began mandating the use of advanced AI agents like OpenClaw — a tool that has seen explosive adoption across the country.

Tasks that once took teams of people days to complete could now be handled by AI in minutes. By March, the quiet firings started.

“The tasks most people do can be completely replaced by OpenClaw,” Liu said. “After a person writes all their workflows into OpenClaw… they can basically be fired.”

Liu is far from alone. Across China’s tech, entertainment, and advertising sectors, companies are implementing small-scale, discreet layoffs and hiring freezes as they accelerate AI adoption. Nine workers interviewed by Reuters described a pattern of gradual headcount reduction designed to avoid triggering government scrutiny or public backlash.

This behind-the-scenes restructuring stands in sharp contrast to the high-profile, large-scale AI-linked job cuts announced by Western giants like Meta, which have fueled anti-AI sentiment in the U.S. and Europe.

Beijing faces a delicate balancing act. The government’s ambitious “AI Plus” initiative aims for 70% AI adoption across key sectors by 2027 and 90% by 2030, viewing the technology as essential for boosting productivity and sustaining economic growth. Yet officials are acutely aware of the social risks. Under Chinese labor laws, companies must obtain government approval for layoffs exceeding 10% of their workforce, and courts have ruled against firms that openly replace workers with AI.

A senior manager at a major Chinese fintech company explained the internal calculus, saying: “Private companies will need to make room for some level of inefficiency in order to avoid mass layoffs that would prompt ‘social instability’ and could have political ramifications.”

This cautious approach reflects deeper structural realities. China is already grappling with a high youth unemployment rate, and early-career workers are disproportionately exposed to AI automation. Citibank estimates that 9.6% of all Chinese jobs, roughly 70 million positions, are at high risk of displacement, with the figure rising to 13.6% for workers in their 20s. At the same time, a record 12.7 million university graduates entered the job market last year amid declining entry-level pay and fewer opportunities.

Token Usage as Performance Metric

Some firms are going further than just reducing headcount — they are measuring AI adoption itself. A big data engineer at one Chinese tech giant said his manager began ranking employees by token usage (a measure of AI compute consumption) in March, with the metric now tied to performance reviews and promotion prospects.

“It is relatively forced. One should not use AI for the sake of it,” he said on condition of anonymity. “I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m getting closer to being replaced.”

The entertainment industry has been hit particularly hard. Low-budget micro-drama studios have shifted aggressively to AI-generated actors and sets.

“We had 30-40 people in our production department. After the transition to AI, each group was cut down to about 10 people, with only two remaining for live-action filming. With live-action, a single actor costs thousands of yuan per day, even for a minor role with just a few lines,” Ayase, a 22-year-old micro-drama producer who was let go in February, said, describing the scale of change.

Chinese authorities are walking a careful line. State media has run articles reassuring workers that AI is not “stealing people’s rice bowls,” while officials study the employment impact and potential reskilling needs. However, a comprehensive policy response has yet to emerge. The hashtag “AI anxiety” has racked up millions of views on platforms like RedNote, where users draw parallels to 19th-century weavers displaced by power looms.

“AI sits at the center of China’s economic transition in a particular way: it is simultaneously a driver of the disruption and the proposed solution to it. Wide-scale AI adoption is needed to achieve industrial efficiency and accelerate innovation. The hope is a positive snowball effect on productivity and growth,” Selena Guo, social policy analyst at advisory firm China Policy, said.

Yet the speed of job displacement currently outpaces new AI-related job creation. While AI job postings surged 74% in 2025, the broader labor market remains challenging. Companies like Alibaba are reportedly reducing headcount in areas such as marketing and front-end development through attrition and targeted cuts rather than mass layoffs. An engineer in Alibaba’s cloud division said AI-driven reductions are unfolding gradually across parts of the company.

Long-Term Outlook

The push for AI comes as China’s economy shows signs of cooling after a strong first quarter. Growth slowed in April, with industrial production and retail sales posting some of their weakest readings in years. The official manufacturing PMI slipped to the contraction threshold of 50 in May.

Economists warn that without robust domestic consumption, the productivity gains from AI may not fully offset the social and economic costs of displacement. The government’s emphasis on “high-quality development” and technological self-reliance is clear, but translating that into a broad-based opportunity for workers remains a formidable challenge.

Currently, many Chinese companies appear to be prioritizing quiet efficiency gains over dramatic public restructurings. This approach may buy time, but it does not eliminate the underlying tension. As AI tools like OpenClaw and Wukong (Alibaba’s multi-agent platform) become more capable, with features like “one-person company” skills that can automate entire departments, the pressure on employment will only intensify.

Liu, the Hangzhou contractor, is already contemplating her options.

“AI penetrating every aspect of life is only a matter of time… I want to go back to farming, or become an artisan,” she said.

Her sentiment echoes a growing anxiety across China’s workforce.