> There's no question that there are synergies between Tesla and SpaceX in our futures," she said. "There's a convergence of what we're all trying to accomplish in the future."
I think there are other reasons and am capable of critical thought. A variety of synergies have been discussed publicly for at least 9 years. This article lists several of them.
Yeah I'm definitely questioning what synergies there are between Tesla and SpaceX. What do electric cars and rockets have in common? Are they going to me a rocket powered car? Put a Tesla on the moon?
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.
Tesla claims to be pivoting away from cars in favour of producing their Optimus robots. And SpaceX's IPO valuation appears to be predicated on them being an AI datacentre company.
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.
Yeah, it's all scifi posturing. Same with the "Optimus will begin colonising Mars in 2026" line that they were still pushing just a few months ago.
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.
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.
It's been discussed for at least a decade. A Wall St analyst even wrote a note suggesting it back in 2017 that was widely covered in the media. Most people think is very likely to happen eventually.
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.
I was wondering why he got so many voting shares in SpaceX. Then worked out it was just enough to get overall control of a combined company (assuming SpaceX remains at or above IPO valuation and Tesla stays under his beloved 420).
Suspect it also means all pumping from now on out will be Space X, whilst Tesla will be "less bullish" than normal.
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.
It makes sense, he stopped contributing to Tesla significantly long time ago (he redirected the NVIDIA GPUs that were supposed to go for Tesla self driving to X.ai).
I made sure to steer clear of Tesla and now SpaceX across my investments. It's not that Musk is an incompetent leader or the companies are bad, but his reality distortion field creates valuations and schemes designed to extract as much money as possible from investors rather than to enrich them.
I'm not a Elon hater because of his politics. There are plenty of rich fucks out there with much more malevolent political views, though the Germans know that salute meant. I started making TikTok's about Elon because he tried building a rocket with agile methodologies more suitable for a smartphone app. On top of that, both starship and cyber truck are vanity projects constrained by his ego to embody his vision of what those things should be. He stopped listening to the smart people he has hired.
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.
It would be like Samsung: Samsung does semiconductors, smartphones, displays, TVs, appliances, batteries, shipbuilding, construction, insurance, hotels, and even theme parks.
Actually no. Asians have common decency to run separate businesses as separate companies. Samsung Electronics does a lot. But it really doesn't have direct hand in other business. Even if there is some ownership in them.
On the one hand, there's definitely some overlap between Tesla and SpaceX. Optimus, FSD, xAI, Orbital AI, Tesla Solar, Terafab, and so on. It genuinely does make sense.
On the other hand, large part of it is probably securing control of the company with super voting stocks.
It only makes sense if Tesla does not have technology to jump the finish line of Optimus and Robotaxis. If they do have technology and can release those products, then SpaceX is only needed to improve margins on them as they can vertically integrate. I don't think they have technology...
Not sure why this didn't occur to me earlier. It's always been the play, and it's probably ALSO why many Tesla investors went along with this IPO. It gets him control of Tesla again without paying him all those shares and without the lawsuits (though if I'm honest any decent anti-trust regulator would prevent it so this will likely need to happen in the next two years (while little to no competent governance is allowed)
Know how they grew Xai and built the data centers so fast? They rerouted Tesla chip orders. That business was supposed to be built inside of Tesla, but it was extracted. Tesla still needs it.
This has been the plan all along. Tesla is the only one of any of these companies who makes money (but dwindling) and by getting Elon majority shares of SpaceX, he can then gain majority control of Tesla.
This is all because Musk doesn’t want to have two different corporate email addresses. The corporate synergies are secondary to the convenience of checking just one mailbox.
The Tesla/SpaceX merger rumors feel like classic cope created by Tesla bagholders who feel they are missing out on the SpaceX IPO.
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.
It's incredible to think that there are still people who think Elon Musk is really involved in any positive way in the technology his companies' employees produce.
A nice tidbit from the article, for people who think that Tesla Cybertrucks are actually selling decently well:
> 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.
Where I live (Orange County, California) they are selling decently well. There’s one parked in every street. I guess when you have a high Asian immigrant population, they ignore the politics and just buy what makes sense for them.
My guess is that it's all a scheme for Elon to get more control over Tesla. In a healthy system all those acquisitions and self-dealing would be blocked right away
So now that Tesla is clearly crashing, fold it into the more successful SpaceX and get to roll the dice again?
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.
And it still is the most likely outcome; but now it wont be Elon losing 99% of his worth, it will be every pension and retirement, every index fund, every investment portfolio that 'must buy' into this simply because of the scale, regardless of the individual investors' best interests.
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.
Look at how many fuck ups there are with basically no repercussions; the dude is still rich.
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 ($$$).
> Look at how many fuck ups there are with basically no repercussions; the dude is still rich.
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.
If they would to merge, Elon would have total control over this new entity (> 50%). Why would Tesla shareholders vote to relinquish their rights? I've been listening to some of the _Tesla cultist_ - as I call them - and they are open and excited about merging with SpaceX for one reason only: they want to keep Elon happy. Jfc.
> There's no question that there are synergies between Tesla and SpaceX in our futures," she said. "There's a convergence of what we're all trying to accomplish in the future."
Accomplish a ludicrous valuation above all else?
Elon's payout depends on it
If anyone thinks there’s any reason other than this, it’s a clear sign they’re incapable of critical thought.
I think there are other reasons and am capable of critical thought. A variety of synergies have been discussed publicly for at least 9 years. This article lists several of them.
Yeah I'm definitely questioning what synergies there are between Tesla and SpaceX. What do electric cars and rockets have in common? Are they going to me a rocket powered car? Put a Tesla on the moon?
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.
Tesla claims to be pivoting away from cars in favour of producing their Optimus robots. And SpaceX's IPO valuation appears to be predicated on them being an AI datacentre company.
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.
But why are robots and LLMs connected? The only reason why a robot feels more connected to AI than a self driving car is science fiction.
Yeah, it's all scifi posturing. Same with the "Optimus will begin colonising Mars in 2026" line that they were still pushing just a few months ago.
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.
I am questioning synergies of Tesla and Tesla and SpaceX and SpaceX. So Tesla and Tesla and SpaceX and SpaceX... Is just all that cubed...
Stop asking those questions and just give him your money already.
Per the article, there are already co-invested in building Elons chip megafab.
If you are doing vertical integration, there are lots of common technologies and skills.
Batteries and solar panels in space/mars/moon.
What do you want? Him to act in the shareholder's interest or something?
He's a shareholder, he acts in his own interest, therefore he's acting on a shareholder's interest!
Of course. That's the one and only goal.
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.
It was called here on Hacker News by SilverElfin back in early February (4 months back), and I remember because I agreed:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46863028
It's been discussed for at least a decade. A Wall St analyst even wrote a note suggesting it back in 2017 that was widely covered in the media. Most people think is very likely to happen eventually.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/05/the-case-for-elon-musk-to-co...
People have been talking about this for much longer than four months.
yup, and elon hinted at it in podcast interviews during the past year as well
people, please, can we find out who said it first
This guy joked about it in 2013:
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.
Seems very likely, related: https://electrek.co/2026/05/31/a-spacex-tesla-merger-could-t...
That was my first thought. A underhanded way for Elon to further enrich himself.
Elon is such an honorable person that he will end up not do it, and we will worship him for that.
I cannot tell if this is sarcasm or genuine. I am horrified that it could be either almost as much as I am by the fact that I can't tell.
I was wondering why he got so many voting shares in SpaceX. Then worked out it was just enough to get overall control of a combined company (assuming SpaceX remains at or above IPO valuation and Tesla stays under his beloved 420).
Suspect it also means all pumping from now on out will be Space X, whilst Tesla will be "less bullish" than normal.
Interesting. So if there's a merger of SpaceX and Tesla, he gets back more Tesla.
If you're gonna float a $2 trillion bubble, why not make it 3.
Don't be ridiculous.
4.
Thinking too small. With grandma's pension we can get to at least 5.
I guess these days the saying is "if you aim for Jupiter you land on Mars"
or 4, or 5, or whatever makes Elon more money than he knows what to do with.
meh.. 10T or your not even trying.
10T isn't cool... You know what's cool?
Interesting bit at the end for anyone unaware:
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.
It makes sense, he stopped contributing to Tesla significantly long time ago (he redirected the NVIDIA GPUs that were supposed to go for Tesla self driving to X.ai).
He wants full control back.
I made sure to steer clear of Tesla and now SpaceX across my investments. It's not that Musk is an incompetent leader or the companies are bad, but his reality distortion field creates valuations and schemes designed to extract as much money as possible from investors rather than to enrich them.
I'm not a Elon hater because of his politics. There are plenty of rich fucks out there with much more malevolent political views, though the Germans know that salute meant. I started making TikTok's about Elon because he tried building a rocket with agile methodologies more suitable for a smartphone app. On top of that, both starship and cyber truck are vanity projects constrained by his ego to embody his vision of what those things should be. He stopped listening to the smart people he has hired.
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.
It would be like Samsung: Samsung does semiconductors, smartphones, displays, TVs, appliances, batteries, shipbuilding, construction, insurance, hotels, and even theme parks.
Actually no. Asians have common decency to run separate businesses as separate companies. Samsung Electronics does a lot. But it really doesn't have direct hand in other business. Even if there is some ownership in them.
It is the Asian model of capitalism. David Oks did a great article about this focusing on Japanese firms in particular [1]
[1] https://davidoks.blog/p/why-japanese-companies-do-so-many
It would be like the old General Electric.
Yet another conglomerate
On the one hand, there's definitely some overlap between Tesla and SpaceX. Optimus, FSD, xAI, Orbital AI, Tesla Solar, Terafab, and so on. It genuinely does make sense.
On the other hand, large part of it is probably securing control of the company with super voting stocks.
It only makes sense if Tesla does not have technology to jump the finish line of Optimus and Robotaxis. If they do have technology and can release those products, then SpaceX is only needed to improve margins on them as they can vertically integrate. I don't think they have technology...
They're gonna have to update this website. Already have to drag in order to finish.
(https://wealth.ronnycoste.com/)
It's very strange web site, something is off with the math, $9B cost of chemotherapy went away too fast.
It makes me question reality when Tesla is just as overvalued and yet has maintained its value for years.
The merge could be named Musk Industries, quite fitting considering his hubris and association with comic books.
Both companies are based in Texas, it's Tesla + SpaceX... TexLax?
Sounds like a laxative.
MuskX
Well given dual class shares in SpaceX Elon will get full control of Tesla for free aside from all other benefits ...
Not sure why this didn't occur to me earlier. It's always been the play, and it's probably ALSO why many Tesla investors went along with this IPO. It gets him control of Tesla again without paying him all those shares and without the lawsuits (though if I'm honest any decent anti-trust regulator would prevent it so this will likely need to happen in the next two years (while little to no competent governance is allowed)
Know how they grew Xai and built the data centers so fast? They rerouted Tesla chip orders. That business was supposed to be built inside of Tesla, but it was extracted. Tesla still needs it.
This has been the plan all along. Tesla is the only one of any of these companies who makes money (but dwindling) and by getting Elon majority shares of SpaceX, he can then gain majority control of Tesla.
This is all because Musk doesn’t want to have two different corporate email addresses. The corporate synergies are secondary to the convenience of checking just one mailbox.
It will probably be an attempt to sneak SpaceX into S&P500 through the Tesla backdoor. Someone needs those 401k monies.
Does this mean Telsa would get out of the S&P index, or that SpaceX would come in? Hope for the former.
They'll both be in the S&P, and combined would represent roughly 5%
This is a good question and I think it depends on who acquires who.
If we wants control and SpaceX acquires Tesla, then I think it drops out until there is profitability.
They relaxed the rules for SpaceX already, it's in almost immediately the IPO
S&P rejected SpaceX.
I stand corrected, S&P did not shorten its rules to allow SpaceX after all. I was under the impression the Google compute deal made it so it could.
Nice!
no, that’s Nasdaq not S&P
right, accelerated vesting
What's the end goal of merging everything into X ?
So he controls Y and Z!
The Tesla/SpaceX merger rumors feel like classic cope created by Tesla bagholders who feel they are missing out on the SpaceX IPO.
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.
It's incredible to think that there are still people who think Elon Musk is really involved in any positive way in the technology his companies' employees produce.
This seems like a narrative construction detached from reality . Tesla owners can just sell and buy spacex. Its not like tesla is down.
A nice tidbit from the article, for people who think that Tesla Cybertrucks are actually selling decently well:
> 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.
Where I live (Orange County, California) they are selling decently well. There’s one parked in every street. I guess when you have a high Asian immigrant population, they ignore the politics and just buy what makes sense for them.
They've sold 20k last year, 35k the year before that. Not only are they selling poorly, the market is quickly shrinking.
Degenerate scammers
Something here stinks....and I'm not sure what it is. But my god, the corruption here is staggering.
My guess is that it's all a scheme for Elon to get more control over Tesla. In a healthy system all those acquisitions and self-dealing would be blocked right away
well that was fast
So now that Tesla is clearly crashing, fold it into the more successful SpaceX and get to roll the dice again?
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.
And it still is the most likely outcome; but now it wont be Elon losing 99% of his worth, it will be every pension and retirement, every index fund, every investment portfolio that 'must buy' into this simply because of the scale, regardless of the individual investors' best interests.
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.
It's like the Martingale strategy for roulette, but if you figure out you have slightly better than 50% returns you have positive expected outcomes.
I don't know who told you Tesla is crashing, but [they lied to you.](https://www.tradingview.com/chart/cYRyThbO/)
That’s the stock, which has very little relation to how the company itself is doing, especially in Tesla’s case!
Look at how many fuck ups there are with basically no repercussions; the dude is still rich.
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 ($$$).
This is a take on Elon that I cannot agree with.
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.
No, Elon didn't put in a trillion dollars worth of work.
Nobody did. That's the cool thing about surplus value creation.
You can take $5 of labor, $5 of capital, and make something people will pay $20 for
Also it takes lies, cheating, and a propensity for murdering women and children, which are the coolest aspects of surplus value creation.
> Look at how many fuck ups there are with basically no repercussions; the dude is still rich.
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.
If they would to merge, Elon would have total control over this new entity (> 50%). Why would Tesla shareholders vote to relinquish their rights? I've been listening to some of the _Tesla cultist_ - as I call them - and they are open and excited about merging with SpaceX for one reason only: they want to keep Elon happy. Jfc.
Have you met Tesla shareholders?
cars and spaceships... totally the same thing.
They're all like "Tesla is an ai company now!!1!"
https://www.autoblog.com/news/tesla-is-an-ai-company-now
See? If you throw infinite amounts of money at someone, they can always be successful
Just keep changing the goalposts so all of rubes investing in these junk stocks can keep drinking the koolaid.
Also, so Elon can raid the company treasury.