Current: Committees at Tesla and SpaceX are examining a merger of the two companies according to Musk

Image: Tesla (Musk at the 2025 shareholder meeting)

Instead of one company worth over a trillion dollars, Elon Musk now oversees two, as SpaceX also crossed that threshold following Tesla’s IPO this summer. The space company with AI ambitions was actually more valuable than Tesla from the start — but such differences may soon no longer matter: At SpaceX’s Q3 conference, Musk officially confirmed for the first time that a merger of his two companies is being actively planned.

Tesla-SpaceX Merger Under Consideration

Similar to Tesla, SpaceX holds a quarterly conference call since its IPO, during which questions from individual investors are also answered. Following rumors of a merger between the two companies, Musk was directly asked about it. He confirmed that Tesla and SpaceX have formed committees to explore a merger, stating that he thinks it is a good idea but must stay out of those discussions as an interested party, according to The Edge.

https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1PKqrNbLZbPGb

Musk said he needed to be very careful on this topic, but it didn’t stop him from continuing to advocate for a potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX. Such a combination would have many advantages, he said. However, the shareholders would ultimately have the final say, and their approval isn’t guaranteed according to the CEO. It’s premature to assume such a merger will actually happen at this time, Musk added. The committees haven’t yet agreed on the terms.

Musk: Shareholders must decide

Musk states that the oversight committees at SpaceX and Tesla are independent. They consist of members from the boards of both companies, whose names he did not reveal. Under securities regulations, seven board members at Tesla and six at SpaceX are considered independent for this purpose. However, Ira Ehrenpreis, who last year was part of Tesla’s three-member committee tasked with setting Musk’s new CEO compensation, has now also been appointed to SpaceX’s board.

Initially, Tesla produced electric cars and SpaceX manufactured rockets. There were already points of overlap between the two companies earlier on. Now, they are cooperating on what is likely Musk’s most ambitious project: building a giant factory called Terafab to produce AI chips, with an estimated cost in the tens of billions. Additionally, Tesla and SpaceX aim to create AI data centers in space. In essence, both are active in the field of artificial intelligence.

Tesla’s Minor Stake in SpaceX

For Musk, this field is no longer referred to as AI under U.S. President Trump’s decree, but rather as Superintelligence (SI). The CEO used this term again at the SpaceX conference on Tuesday. Last year, Musk’s AI company xAI acquired his social media platform X before itself becoming part of SpaceX. Tesla, on the other hand, invested $2 billion in xAI before the acquisition, which then became a minor stake in the space company.