Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX acquired his artificial intelligence firm xAI on Monday, according to reports.
The deal gave the companies a whopping combined valuation of $1.25 trillion, according to Bloomberg.
SpaceX acquired xAI to “form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform,” the company said in a statement.
SpaceX, which has huge rocket contracts with NASA and offers the Starlink satellite internet service, let employees sell shares at a price valuing the company around $800 billion, according to the New York Times. XAI, which owns the social media site X and runs the Grok chatbot, said it raised $20 billion at a $230 billion valuation.
The merger was poised to impact SpaceX’s reported plans to go public. Last week, the Financial Times reported Musk had floated holding an IPO in mid-June to coincide with a rare planetary alignment and his 55th birthday.
Musk has said he wants to launch AI data centers into space – an expensive plan that would require SpaceX’s capabilities and a significant cash infusion.
Last week, SpaceX asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to launch up to 1 million satellites into orbit to help “accommodate the explosive growth of data demands driven by AI,” according to a filing.
“By directly harnessing near-constant solar power with little operating or maintenance costs, these satellites will achieve transformative cost and energy efficiency while significantly reducing the environmental impact associated with terrestrial data centers,” SpaceX wrote in the filing.
Musk serves as CEO of both SpaceX and xAI. He’s also the boss of electric car maker Tesla, brain-chip startup Neuralink and tunnel-digging firm The Boring Company.
