On the day of SpaceX’s highly anticipated IPO, president Gwynne Shotwell hinted at a move many analysts increasingly expect—that Elon Musk’s two public companies will someday merge to form a Musk empire.
In an interview with CNBC, she said a megamerger “might make Elon’s life a little easier, actually.”
“There’s no question that there’s synergies between Tesla and SpaceX in our futures, definitely. There’s a convergence of a kind of what we’re all trying to accomplish in the future,” Shotwell added in the interview.
Shotwell didn’t elaborate on the specific synergies that exist between Tesla and SpaceX, but the two companies are already collaborating in some areas, including jointly running Musk’s planned $55 billion “Terafab” facility, which will produce chips for robotics and space travel. SpaceX has also previously spent millions on Tesla technology, including $506 million worth of Tesla Megapack power cells and $103 million on Cybertrucks for SpaceX facilities.
Musk has a history of combining his companies. In 2016, Tesla shelled out $2.6 billion worth of shares to acquire SolarCity, a solar energy company run by his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive, in which he had a 22% stake and served as chairman. Later, after buying social media website X, formerly Twitter, he merged it with his AI company xAI in a deal valued at $50 billion. In February, SpaceX acquired xAI and X.
