Elon Musk’s SpaceX reportedly mulling a merger with xAI

Elon Musk’s SpaceX reportedly considering merger with xAI

By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner

Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX and its artificial intelligence startup xAI are reportedly considering a merger, a move that would bring SpaceX’s rockets and its satellite internet subsidiary Starlink under one umbrella with xAI, which oversees social media platform X and chatbot Grok.

The two wings of Elon Musk’s sprawling tech empire could merge ahead of a plan to take SpaceX public later this year, according to Reuters, which cited an anonymous source and recent company documents. SpaceX IPO Could Value Company at $1.5 Trillion, Says Financial Times. A merger with xAI could bolster Elon Musk’s plan to use SpaceX’s Starship rocket, still in development, to launch orbital AI data centers, experts have speculated.

Musk and other AI leaders are increasingly optimistic about space as the answer to all data center problems: Although costly to build and costly to power, increasingly sprawling data centers are central to many AI companies’ growth strategies. If demand for AI continues to grow, terrestrial data centers (and power supplies) may not be able to keep pace. Orbiting data centers, however, would have virtually unlimited access to solar power, although such hardware would also have its limitations.

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SpaceX and xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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