Musk Empire: SpaceX and Tesla Explore Fusion

It has been speculated for some time that Elon Musk could merge his two companies SpaceX and Tesla. This now seems to be taking shape. As Musk said on Tuesday at the presentation of SpaceX business results, both the space company and the automaker have formed a panel to consider a merger. “I think it would be a good idea,” Musk said, referring to a number of synergies that exist between SpaceX and Tesla. Musk, who is a major shareholder of both companies, claimed that he could not attend the deliberations because of conflicts of interest. He added that it would be an exaggeration to call a merger a “certainty”, especially since shareholders would have to agree to it. However, Musk himself has a large share of the voting rights, and in larger decisions in the past, such as his salary package, the majority of shareholders have followed his wishes. Musk also took the presentation of the figures as an opportunity to make bold predictions once again: He said that by the end of 2027, SpaceX could reach a sales level that is projected to between 500 billion and one trillion dollars per year. Rapid growth, strong satellite division SpaceX looks back on the first full quarter after its IPO, and the business figures now presented for this period have exceeded expectations. The space company, led by Elon Musk, grew rapidly in the third quarter, increasing its revenue year-on-year from $5.6 billion to $14.6 billion. Unlike in the previous quarter, SpaceX was also profitable this time, reporting a net profit of $4.4 billion. The stock exchange was satisfied, the share price of SpaceX rose on Tuesday in post-exchange trading temporarily by more than four percent. SpaceX only went public in June this year. The stock was issued for $135 at the time, and the price rose to more than $200 within a few days. After that, however, it went downhill again, on Tuesday before the publication of the business figures it cost about 147 dollars. This corresponds to a market value of about two trillion dollars. SpaceX originally specialized in space, but has positioned itself much broader in recent years. Much larger than the traditional space business is now the satellite division known as Starlink, which provides high-speed access to the Internet from space. This year, SpaceX also acquired X.AI, the artificial intelligence company from Musk’s empire. “SI” becomes the largest division In the second quarter, the satellite business generated the largest turnover, this time it was the AI division. Their turnover was $7.6 billion, compared to $813 million a year ago. The jump in sales is mainly due to agreements on leasing computer capacity in its data centers, which SpaceX has concluded with companies such as Anthropic and Google in recent months. Anthropic alone pays SpaceX $1.25 billion a month. SpaceX has also acquired the AI specialist Cursor for 60 billion dollars. In its quarterly report, SpaceX spoke of “SI”, i.e. “superintelligence”, instead of AI. In doing so, the company is following the wishes of US President Donald Trump, who recently ordered American authorities to speak only of SI on their websites and in their official correspondence. Trump has also made it clear that he expects the technology industry to follow suit. Musk has in the past year, in the meantime, with Trump, but the two men have moved closer. Lufthansa with Starlink In SpaceX’s satellite business, sales increased by 69 percent to $5.2 billion in the third quarter. Starlink’s customers include households, businesses and governments. At the end of the quarter, Starlink had 13.6 million subscribers, up from 12.0 million three months earlier. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said a number of airlines made their first flights using Starlink Internet connections in the past quarter, including Deutsche Lufthansa. In SpaceX’s traditional space business, sales increased 6 percent to $1.8 billion. Musk has only made headlines at the beginning of the week with the announcement that he wants to give every child in the US a SpaceX share next year. According to government figures, there are around 73 million children under 18 in the country. If each of them got a SpaceX stock, Musk’s promise at the current share price would be worth more than $10 billion. Musk wants to distribute the shares via the so-called “Trump Accounts”. These are tax-advantaged and government securities depositories for children that have recently been introduced by the US government.