SpaceX's president is floating a Tesla merger as the company begins trading
qz.com
qz.com
Accomplish a ludicrous valuation above all else?
Why? Well, as Cory Doctorow said at the talk I attended earlier this week, they do this for the same reason a dog licks his balls: because they can and no one will stop them.
The only thing I can think that makes any sense at all is Teslas coming with Starlink terminals built in. That seems like a stretch though.
So I guess the "Musk plays 4d chess" view would be that there are obvious synergies between humanoid robots and AI.
Ugh. Honestly, that makes it seem worse than the purely cynical financial engineering takes.
There's perhaps a chance that some part of it might happen someday, but right now the main thing is to distract attention from Tesla's lack of model development and SpaceX's much-vaunted AI business being based on reselling datacentre space at a loss.
[0] This assumes Anthropic and Google actually keep paying for at least 1 year of the signed 3, since they can cancel their contracts easily.
Once upon a time, Robotaxi and Optimus sounded like visionary futuristic ideas. However:
We now live in a world where Waymo exists, and autonomous taxi hasn’t proven to be as socially transformative as promised. No huge latent market exposed. Aslo, Tesla is lagging behind.
We now live in the world where Unitree exists, and is shipping! Again, Tesla is on the back foot. The technology no longer seems quite so futuristic. Disruptors usually disrupt from down-market— that puts BYD cars and Unitree robots in the better position.
With a merger, the joint sci-fi future proposition is colonies on Mars. That one is likely to stay in the future for a long time. From a stock valuation point of view, the goal is for the promise to be forever in the future. That way, the investor thinks the upside is still to come. Once the promise is delivered, it’s time to cash out.
That's because they are still super expensive - more expensive than Uber!
That's probably partly because the technology is very expensive, but also because they have no competition. Both of those will eventually change.
If you are doing vertical integration, there are lots of common technologies and skills.
Electric motors? I imagine there are differences but the super heavy grid fins are electrically actuated (I have heard these motors were sourced from Tesla, though I don't have a great reference for that on hand). The thrust vectoring is also electrically actuated... again, I imagine there are differences of what's on the rocket and what's in the cars... but there are cross over areas of research and engineering.
Also, in a hand-wavy way, rovers share some traits with electric cars; again electric motors, wheels, steering, etc.
So while I don't believe a traditional car company is exactly trying to build space hardened/ready equipment in the normal course of business... it's not as far fetched as some combinations could be.
A majority shareholder.
Whereas in reality automotive companies do not organically have rocketry divisions.
- self-driving ai stuff (above the) cloud
- starlink connecting to cars instead of cellular (in addition to?)
- robots in space
https://x.com/Loh/status/362036803517169664
A Wall St analyst was asking questions about it on Tesla earnings calls in 2016 and later wrote a research note about the idea. Been widely discussed since.
https://www.roic.ai/quote/TSLA/transcripts/2016-year/2-quart...
That the earliest mentions I could quickly find.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/05/the-case-for-elon-musk-to-co...
Suspect it also means all pumping from now on out will be Space X, whilst Tesla will be "less bullish" than normal.
Whilst he owns a lot of Tesla, he doesn't have majority control - and has to get shareholders to vote on stuff like "Whether Elon should be given ridiculous bonus packages" and similar.
He's previously said both that he wants a single company and that he needs complete control of it.
Merge of companies at values I mentioned wouldn't give him over 50% ownership, but gives 51% of the votes (Although I'd suggest you check my maths, people on the internet are sometimes wrong..)
I've also ignored the Tesla bonus plan - as it could be argued (and I'm sure it will be), that if it's Tesla that consumes SpaceX, then he's increased the market cap of Tesla. This then triggers new Tesla shares to be minted and given to him (last bonus plan), which both moves both more cash and voting out of the hands of the public into his.
Some might suggest this sounds like outright fraud - but his little fans will undoubtedly cheer this all through again..
Under the terms set out in SpaceX's filing, Musk commands a supermajority of voting shares — more than 80% — and retains the right to sign off even on any board action that could result in his ouster.
He wants full control back.
4.
[1] https://davidoks.blog/p/why-japanese-companies-do-so-many
On the other hand, large part of it is probably securing control of the company with super voting stocks.
He overwork his people and burns them out. If he wasn't such an egotistical twat about his psroduct visions, starship might be flying commercial payloads and cybertruck might not be the worst pick up truck ever made.
So yeah, Elon is an incompetent leader. The companies are bad because you'll burn out if you work there.
Maybe it can be a teleportation company? Imagine the TAM for that.
If we wants control and SpaceX acquires Tesla, then I think it drops out until there is profitability.
Nice!
> SpaceX spent $131 million on Cybertrucks in 2025, according to SpaceX's IPO filing.
Per their numbers (20k cars sold in 2025) and the list price (70-100k), this means that almost 10% of all Cybertrucks sold by Tesla in 2025 were bought by another Elon Musk company.
Let’s be real: Elon has mentally checked out of Tesla. His heart and focus is at SpaceX, and long time Tesla holders have watched this slow-motion abandonment happen over the past few years. Just look at the lack of projects/innovation coming out of Tesla, and compare that to what's happening at SpaceX. Innovation has slowed to a crawl at Tesla. Tesla shareholders desperately want in on Elon's next project, and the only way they can protect their investment is if SpaceX buys them out.
Also, part of this is their own self-delusion to discourage each other from selling to buy the shiner new Elon project.
Also, so Elon can raid the company treasury.
Classic Elon. This is the same thing that he did to rescue a failing Solar City by making it part of Tesla.
It takes a lot to get where Elon is. But it also takes a willingness to double down over and over again on big bets. And he himself will be the first to admit that the most likely outcome of his strategy was bankruptcy.
Is any more proof needed that if you ride the coat tails of real engineers and have a propensity for screwing other people over that that is what success really is for a lot of people in business?
Just look to the number of huge companies with founding members or integral early members being forced out just as things are getting good ($$$).
I read something that put it into perspective for me. Musk's current net worth is ~ $1 trillion. He could mess up and destroy 99% of his wealth and he would still be worth $10 billion.
If he did something stupid again and lost 99% of the remaining 1%, he would still be worth $100 million.
It would take him screwing up a third time and losing 99% once again to be down to a middle-class net worth of $1 million.
I get it. I know how much people want to hate him. And how much fuel he has given for that.
But he's very talented, and really puts in the work. According to people I personally know who work with him closely, he's the real deal.
Doesn't stop him from being an asshole. But you get the bad with the good.
You can take $5 of labor, $5 of capital, and make something people will pay $20 for
After losing 99%, Elon would still be worth 10B, but now the risk is with the investors? What is 1% remaining out of the portion of their individual net worth committed to one (or more) of these types of index funds out of a need for "safety?"
Oops, that's $100 remaining for every 10K invested; that's roughly the cost of a single steak dinner at a mid-grade chain restaurant.
I'm sorry, I just cant imagine that this really ends well. There simply isn't anything approaching reality in the profit:risks at SpaceX.