SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to discuss a merger, a move that would combine Elon Musk's rocket, satellite, AI, car and robotics businesses under one roof. The disclosure comes as SpaceX is about to borrow another $40 billion to spend on Nvidia chips, a move the source article notes carries high credit risk for the company. Musk said on SpaceX's recent earnings call that there is a lot of merit to combining the two companies, citing gains from cooperating on developing superintelligence software. He did not elaborate on the merger on Tesla's call.
SpaceX reported $7.56 billion in revenue from its superintelligence division in its Q3 earnings on Tuesday. The subcategory of SI solutions and infrastructure revenues jumped to $7 billion, more than three times its level the prior quarter, with $608 million of that coming from the addition of Cursor. Analyst Gil Luria of DA Davidson said most of the remainder was likely compute rented to Anthropic and Google, with Grok probably contributing less. The press release cited increased Grok adoption across enterprise and consumer customers, but that figure was not broken out from bare-metal revenue.
Tesla's Q3 results on Wednesday showed a second consecutive quarter of declining profits, which the source attributes to Musk's diminished interest in normal cars and a focus on robots and self-driving taxis. A recent Roadster hopping car demo is not slated for production for a couple years, is very expensive, and Tesla cannot guarantee delivery.
The companies already have tie-ups: SpaceX bought $131 million of low-selling Cybertrucks from Tesla and has held Tesla bonds in the past. They have also announced two AI projects together, Terafab, a chip-making venture Musk intends to build in Texas with Intel partnered to develop the technology, and Macrohard, an AI project that simulates software already made by Microsoft. SpaceX's May S-1 said both are in very early stages and that the companies have not finalized financial terms, intellectual property rights or the collaboration's ultimate term, and there may never be a definitive agreement. Neither project appears in the most recent 10Q.
On the SpaceX investor call, Musk said Terafab will reach volume production in the second half of 2028 and produce its first test chip in May or June 2027. Reuters noted that Musk has a history of setting timelines his companies have missed. Asked by an analyst whether Musk had placed orders for the machines needed to make cutting-edge equipment, Musk did not answer. Intel CEO said earlier this month the company remained committed to the partnership but is not obligated to remain part of Terafab, and Intel's Thomas Hannaford did not immediately respond to emails asking whether anything had been signed since.
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