Elon Musk's SpaceX is taking over his artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, xAI, as the billionaire continues to unify some of his many business interests.
SpaceX confirmed the deal to acquire xAI, a smaller firm known for its Grok chatbot, posting a memo from Musk about the merger on its website.
In the note, Musk said the combination would form an innovation engine putting AI, rockets, space-based internet, and media under one roof.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, a source familiar said it valued xAI at $125bn (£91bn) and SpaceX at $1tn, making it the most valuable private company ever.
Last month, Musk's electric car company, Tesla, also announced it had invested $2bn into xAI.
Musk told Tesla investors at the time that he envisioned xAI functioning as an orchestra conductor for Tesla factories employing autonomous robots.
At the same time, Musk also mentioned Tesla would stop the manufacture of two car models in favour of producing robots - one of the most significant pivots the company has made.
Tesla moved forward with the xAI investment despite objections from some shareholders, who had questioned the decision to divert resources to another Musk firm. In a vote last year, abstentions and votes against the idea outnumbered those who approved.
SpaceX is also reported to be working on plans to list its shares for public trading.
Emily Zheng, a senior analyst at Pitchbook, said the deal for xAI has all the markings of a company preparing for a public listing.
The sheer cost of compute, infrastructure, and energy is why we are seeing many of venture's most valuable startups like SpaceX prepare to go public this year, Zheng said.
Consolidating these companies ahead of an IPO allows SpaceX to present a differentiated, capital-efficient growth narrative to public investors.
In the SpaceX memo announcing the xAI merger, Musk detailed his thoughts on how space would address the energy requirements of AI companies.
He stated that in the long term, space-based AI is clearly the only scalable option.
Musk expressed that launching AI satellites from Earth would be the immediate focus, while the deal would also advance his broader objectives.
The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centers a reality will fund and enable self-growing bases on the Moon, an entire civilization on Mars and ultimately expansion to the Universe, Musk wrote.
With the completion of this acquisition, Neuralink and The Boring Company appear to be the only smaller Musk ventures not yet integrated into larger operations.
xAI originally launched as part of X, formerly Twitter, drawing on the platform's access to real-time information for AI training.
By spring of 2025, xAI was independently incorporated and valued more highly by investors than X.
The AI company acquired the social media platform in an all-stock deal, with Musk asserting that the merger would combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent necessary for further advancements.
xAI's main product, Grok, has faced scrutiny over its AI image generation feature, prompting investigations by the European Commission and UK watchdog Ofcom over concerns related to inappropriate image content.
In response to these issues, xAI announced limitations on Grok users to curb image editing capabilities.
