STARBASE, Texas — Elon Musk says he is actively considering merging Tesla and SpaceX, his two biggest companies, and that both have set up special committees to look at a deal, BBC News and DW reported.
“Do I think it would be a good idea? Yes,” Musk said on Tuesday’s call with analysts about SpaceX’s latest results. “The special committees have not reached agreement on terms of any transaction and there’s no guarantee that they will. But I do think there is a lot of merit to merging and a lot to be gained.”
With Tesla worth roughly $1.5 trillion and SpaceX about $2 trillion, a combination would be one of the largest mergers in history, BBC News reported. Musk, who runs both companies, said he is a “conflicted party” and is not on either committee. He compared even talking about the idea to “tap dancing through a minefield.”
At least 50% of Tesla’s shareholders would need to approve a deal, a bar Musk called “quite a high hurdle to achieve.” He said a merger would make sense for the companies’ work on chips, artificial intelligence and software, including Terafab, their joint chip-making effort.
SpaceX reported a $4.4 billion profit for the July–September quarter, though it lost $1.1 billion over the first nine months of the year as revenue jumped to $27 billion from $13.7 billion, the BBC said. Revenue from its cloud computing business reached $7.5 billion in the quarter, up from $813 million a year earlier, while Starlink brought in $5.2 billion.
SpaceX shares rose 8% in after-hours trading after Musk’s comments, and Tesla shares rose about 2%, DW reported. Tesla reports its own quarterly results on Wednesday.
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