As Elon Musk prepares to steer a second trillion-dollar firm into the general public market, a transfer that can probably put him accountable for two of the ten most precious U.S. enterprises, chatter is constructing that Musk’s final aim is to mix the entities into one.
SpaceX is predicted to begin buying and selling on the Nasdaq in simply over two weeks after acquiring a personal market valuation of $1.25 trillion earlier this 12 months, when it merged with xAI, Musk’s synthetic intelligence firm. Tesla’s market cap presently sits at round $1.6 trillion.
The 2 firms have already got a laundry checklist of shared sources, and Musk has mentioned with colleagues the potential of folding the businesses collectively, in response to folks accustomed to the talks who requested to not be named as a result of sensitivity of the subject.
A present Tesla worker instructed CNBC that many staff on the electrical automobile firm have lengthy anticipated such a transaction to finally happen and that the subject is brazenly mentioned internally. One other particular person near the corporate mentioned that shared challenges tied to energy and compute constraints have led to common collaborations.
Whereas an organization launching rockets based mostly on contracts with the federal government might not appear to have rather a lot in frequent with an EV producer, each of the companies are more and more centered on AI and the expertise and computing sources mandatory to construct AI infrastructure and providers. Greater than three-quarters of SpaceX’s $10.1 billion in capital expenditures within the first quarter had been tied to AI, and Tesla mentioned in its newest earnings report that capex will roughly triple this 12 months, topping $25 billion.
“Tesla has to run highly effective AI methods inside a shifting automobile with tight limits on energy, cooling, latency, reliability and value,” mentioned Tomasz Tunguz, a former engineer who’s now a enterprise capitalist at Idea Ventures. “SpaceX has to consider compute in orbit, the place radiation, thermal biking, launch mass, energy technology and warmth rejection all develop into existential design constraints.”
Tunguz mentioned a possible merger has captured the eye of tech fans in Silicon Valley, however he concedes {that a} deal of that dimension can be “complicated.”
Representatives from SpaceX and Tesla did not reply to requests for remark.
Musk, the world’s richest particular person, is ready to kick off SpaceX’s roadshow subsequent week, as he tries to promote Wall Road on the guarantees of the 24-year-old firm that is already a giant conglomerate. It consists of the reusable rocket enterprise, the Starlink web satellite tv for pc service and xAI, which incorporates social media web site X, previously referred to as Twitter. SpaceX additionally has an settlement on the desk to buy AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion.
“I believe it has been confirmed by Elon himself,” mentioned Tejpaul Bhatia, a longtime SpaceX investor and CEO of Nebex, a startup that is creating the monetary infrastructure for space-related transactions. “Parallel entrepreneurship appears to work for him.”
Hefty overlap
Tesla and SpaceX have spent years pooling sources and even sharing personnel.
Musk sits on each boards, as does enterprise capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis, founding father of DBL Companions. Musk’s brother Kimbal is presently on Tesla’s board and was once a SpaceX director. SpaceX board members Antonio Gracias and Steve Jurvetson beforehand served on Tesla’s board. And Charles Kuehmann is vice chairman of supplies engineering for Tesla and SpaceX, becoming a member of from Apple a decade in the past, and is thought for taking part in a key position in troubleshooting key design points.
In January, Tesla revealed it had invested $2 billion in xAI. These shares grew to become holdings in SpaceX following that firm’s merger with xAI the next month.
SpaceX mentioned in its prospectus that it purchased $697 million value of Tesla’s Megapack battery vitality storage methods in 2024 and 2025 to energy the info facilities owned and operated by xAI within the space surrounding the corporate’s Colossus services in Memphis, Tennessee. SpaceX additionally mentioned it spent $131 million on Tesla Cybertrucks in 2025, bought on the producer’s advised retail value.
Prior transactions between the businesses included Tesla promoting photo voltaic tools and automobile elements to SpaceX, Tesla utilizing SpaceX non-public jets, and Tesla leaning on SpaceX to develop a particular alloy for its Cybertruck.
Suppliers generally view Musk’s firms as one massive buyer. In 2024, Nvidia agreed to divert a $500 million order of GPUs from Tesla to xAI at Musk’s request.
A Tesla Cybertruck drives previous SpaceX services in Hawthorne, California, US, on Monday, April 13, 2026.
Ethan Swope | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs
Authorized consultants mentioned {that a} SpaceX-Tesla merger probably would not spark antitrust points however it will doubtlessly elevate considerations amongst shareholders in every of the 2 firms. Questions round which firm can be the guardian, how a inventory swap would happen, and who determines the suitable value are among the many thorny challenges.
One factor that is virtually sure is Musk will not have to fret about pushback from SpaceX’s board, provided that the the CEO has 85% voting energy. Within the danger elements part of its prospectus, SpaceX notes that it is a “managed firm,” which permits for exceptions in terms of governance guidelines and signifies that Class A shareholders “won’t have the identical protections afforded to shareholders of firms which might be topic to all the company governance necessities” of the Nasdaq.
The most important beneficiary of a tie-up between SpaceX and Tesla may very well be Musk.
SpaceX has linked Musk’s compensation rewards to 2 milestones: reaching a $7.5 trillion market cap and colonizing Mars with no less than 1 million inhabitants. In the meantime, Tesla shareholders authorised a pay plan late final 12 months that consists of 12 tranches, with every payout tied to market cap positive factors and operational achievements.
Ross Gerber, CEO of funding agency Gerber Kawasaki, beforehand instructed CNBC {that a} merger of SpaceX and Tesla would permit Musk to satisfy a dream of working one massive firm and that it will make it simpler to lift and borrow the varieties of money wanted to compete in AI with the likes of Google.
Bhatia mentioned a mixture can be extra about recognizing the chance forward in SpaceX’s core market.
“I imagine that the house market is large proper now,” Bhatia mentioned. “And it is simply going to get larger after the SpaceX IPO.”
Correction: A previous model of this story incorrectly recognized Kimbal Musk’s present board seats.
