Elon Musk confirmed on Tuesday that the boards of SpaceX and Tesla have each formed special committees of independent directors to explore a potential merger, a preliminary step toward what would be the largest corporate tie-up in history. According to Bloomberg, Musk disclosed the move on SpaceX's third-quarter earnings webcast, telling investors that both companies set up the committees at the request of shareholders.
Musk, who leads both companies, said he is excluded from the discussions because he is a conflicted party. "Both SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to discuss this idea at the request of shareholders," he said, calling it an "odd kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can't be in the conversation." He stressed that no terms have been agreed and cautioned that some investors are treating a deal as a certainty, which he said would be "overstating it."
The scale of a combination would be staggering. Bloomberg reports SpaceX carries a market value of about $2 trillion while Tesla is worth nearly $1.5 trillion, making both among the largest companies in the world. Musk said a merger would need the backing of a majority of all outstanding Tesla shares, not just a majority of votes cast — a hurdle he described as difficult to clear. He argued the case for combining rests on shared work in "superintelligence software," chip design, robotics and getting mass to orbit.
SpaceX shares rose about 4.6% in postmarket trading after the company also posted blockbuster quarterly results, while Tesla climbed roughly 1.2% to 1.7%. The two companies already share deep business ties: SpaceX has purchased more than $100 million worth of Tesla Cybertrucks, and xAI is a major customer of Tesla's utility-scale batteries. NBC News noted that any deal would unite Tesla's electric vehicle, energy and robotics businesses with SpaceX's rocket launch and satellite internet operations under one AI-driven corporate banner.
