A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) weather satellite Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite U (GOES-U) lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, June 25, 2024.
Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo | AFP | Getty Images
Elon Musk is combining rocket maker SpaceX with his artificial intelligence startup, xAI, according to reporting from Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter.
The agreement was announced in a memo on Monday, Bloomberg reported, adding that the company is expected to price shares in an IPO that would value the combined entity at $1.25 trillion.
Public records with the state of Nevada indicate that the deal was completed on Feb. 2, with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. listed as the “managing member” of X.AI Holdings.
The deal marks the largest tie-up in Musk’s vast business portfolio and brings together two companies that have been soaring in value on the private markets. SpaceX opened a secondary share sale last year at a valuation of $800 billion, while xAI was valued at about $230 billion in a $20 billion round that closed earlier this year.
Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle maker and the source of most of his liquid wealth, said last week that it’s agreed to invest about $2 billion into xAI.
Early Last year, Musk expanded xAI by merging it with his social network X, formerly known as Twitter. XAI is facing a host of new regulatory probes by authorities in Europe, India and California after its Grok AI tools enabled users to easily generate and share sexualized images of children and non-consensual intimate images of adults, mostly women.
This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.
