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They both are privately held by the same owner! So, with whom are they talking? :-)
Two socks and two sets of googly eyes are required for this exercise. Attach googly eyes to socks. Insert hands in socks.
By lenerdenator 2026-01-2919:59 Now I'm imagining Musk in a k-hole just staring at his hands in sock puppets for hours.
By georgeecollins 2026-01-2920:021 reply But they don't have all the same owners. If I own company 2/3 of company A and it is worth $0, and I own 2/3 of company B I can't force company B to buy company A for $1. The company B shareholders will be upset and could sue.
Maybe this is a good deal for shareholders of SpaceX and xAI. But then maybe it isn't a good deal for one set of shareholders. I have no idea, but I would love to be a shareholder in SpaceX and would not want to be a shareholer in xAI. Totally depends on the price of course.
By spwa4 2026-01-3019:36 > Maybe this is a good deal for shareholders of SpaceX and xAI.
Yeah they would totally be doing this if they weren't in dire, desperate need of more money ... pinky promise.
Musk writes a letter from his ceo@spacex.com email and he reads it from his ceo@xai.com account. And viceversa.
The lawyers are the ones talking, and they have to come up with a fair valuation.
If SpaceX pays too much for it, other SpaceX shareholders have a case against SpaceX leadership. If xAI accepts an offer that is too low, other xAI shareholders have a case against xAI leadership. Given that the leadership is basically the same people, they are very well incentivized to come up with a valuation that is as fair as possible.
And this is not just theoretical, Musk has already been sued successfully once on a similar case, when his companies gave out too much free support to the boring company.
By edmundsauto 2026-01-2919:451 reply Otoh, he is clearly impulsive and doesn’t think the rules apply to him. I am guessing, if one approach benefits him personally the most, there will be enormous pressure to achieve that outcome.
By CamperBob2 2026-01-2919:55 Otoh, he is clearly impulsive and doesn’t think the rules apply to him.
They don't, so why shouldn't he think that way?
Tesla engineers being lent out right after the Twitter buyout to eval the codebase was one of many reasons I won’t work there. So unserious.
There are many valid complaints, but why is engineers working not a serious thing?
By a_t48 2026-02-0223:02 It’s “unserious” in the sense that it’s undisciplined. Don’t those engineers have things to do at Tesla, rather than going to poke around at a social media website codebase? If I were a Tesla shareholder I’d be pretty annoyed - how is doing so advancing making a better car?
By ortusdux 2026-01-2920:03 I was imagining a boardroom reenactment of Geri's Game
By limagnolia 2026-01-2919:46 Musk is the majority owner, but he is not the only owner. So the discussion is probably amongst senior leadership from both companies and probably involves other significant owners.
By throwaway_23545 2026-01-3110:34 Elon talking to Musk.
By mwigdahl 2026-01-2919:56 "Have your Grok call my Grok!"
By NedF 2026-01-309:35 [dead]
Is this an actual question? Because it seems kinda obvious that one person can have a majority stake in two companies without those companies being the same company.
The better question is whether or not this merger makes any sense.
By dugidugout 2026-01-2919:28 I'd be quick to assume the ":-)" in this context indicates it is not an actual question.
By timy2shoes 2026-01-2919:571 reply Probably in a desperate attempt to stall margin calls on the debt, which would cause him to have to sell his Tesla stock, which might start the freefall in stock price, creating a negative feedback loop and cratering his empire. See also the news about Tesla shifting manufacturing to robotics.
Yep, it's all just a shell game. He used xAI to move the Twitter debt so it couldn't be taken away for failure to pay debts. He's already been using SpaceX to buy Cybertrucks to prop ups sales and Tesla. Using SpaceX to generate revenue to pay off the xAI debts is just another step in the shell game.
By slowmovintarget 2026-02-024:321 reply What debt?
Most of the money to buy Twitter came from investors. They were not loans.
By tick_tock_tick 2026-02-0222:321 reply He's not even vaguely close to getting margin called.
By burnte 2026-02-0320:41 Not now, no, he shuffled it around. He was quite close beforehand, however.
By timy2shoes 2026-01-2921:25 > He used xAI to move the Twitter debt so it couldn't be taken away for failure to pay debts.
Exactly. I think it was obvious he was shifting the debt around when xAI merged w/ X right after xAI raised a large funding round and had cash in the bank (which it could use to pay down the X debt).
By slowmovintarget 2026-02-024:31 That makes zero sense. The loans he took out are personal loans. He can't shuffle those into the companies, and all the other purchase money came from investors not as debt.
Buying Twitter was a financially disastrous decision. It had reportedly lost at least 80% of its value [1]. The loans were secured against Tesla shares so there was the real risk of a margin call and a forced sell off.
And then along came xAI where a bunch of people gave Elon money and he "merged" Twitter and xAI, basically siphoning off billions of the investment funds ti bail himself out. If securities law had teeth, he probably should've gone to prison for this.
At the ssame time, why weer people giving this charlatan man-child billions to invest in AI?
The problem is they weren't buying AI. IMHO they were buying a seat at the table and an influence in the administration, a bit like the Saudi sovereign fund's "investment" in Jared Kushner.
Thing is, this isn't the first time he's done this. Elon used one of his companies (Tesla) to buy another of his companies (SolarCity) who was essentially insolvent but owed a lot of money to a third of Elon's companies (SpaceX). There was a lawsuit but it was dismissed. If you're sufficiently wealthy, the law basically doesn't apply to you [2].
I knew before even clicking on this that the justification would be orbital data centers (and it is). They make no sense becaus eof launch costs, cooling and cosmic rays and solar radiation.
Is this the continuation of the Twitter buyout shell game?
[1]: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/elon-musk-twitter-x-...
By tick_tock_tick 2026-02-0222:35 > Buying Twitter was a financially disastrous decision. It had reportedly lost at least 80% of its value [1]. The loans were secured against Tesla shares so there was the real risk of a margin call and a forced sell off.
No there wasn't any risk of a margin call he instantly leveraged Twitter to take on massive amounts of the debt itself. The purchase of Twitter was much more like a LBO than anything else.
> At the ssame time, why weer people giving this charlatan man-child billions to invest in AI?
Because he's basically got the midas touch as far as investors are concerned. His company don't even need to be "successful" for him to figure out some way to 10x their money.
By eduardogarza 2026-01-2922:39 > At the ssame time, why weer people giving this charlatan man-child billions to invest in AI?
The same reason Adam Neumann got another $350M They all know its a game and that game is prop up the valuations. They get rich off of the speculation and hype rather than the substance
By iammjm 2026-01-2920:37 He did acquired a lot of power and influence through it though. He can now shape and influence public discourse worldwide by pulling the algorithmic strings, amplifying information he likes and suppressing information he doesnt like.
