Speculation that SpaceX and Tesla could merge is back in the spotlight after SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said there are “synergies” between the two companies. But the bigger story is how Musk’s firms already operate like one connected system—through cross
For years, the sprawling companies in Elon Musk’s orbit have behaved like they share the same bloodstream—buying from one another, trading technology, investing across boundaries, and shifting employees when priorities change.
That interlock is now feeding a sharper question: is a mega-merger between SpaceX and Tesla next? The speculation resurfaced on Friday after SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell was asked about combining the two companies on CNBC.
Shotwell didn’t dismiss the idea. “That might make Elon’s life a little easier, actually,” she said. “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.”
A full deal would be the most dramatic consolidation yet—compressing two of Musk’s best-known brands into a single corporate giant. But even without an announcement, the cross-links are already tight enough to make “merger” feel like the next logical step rather than a leap.
In the past year alone, Musk’s broader corporate web has already consolidated: his empire has moved from six major companies to four after xAI acquired social network X and after SpaceX acquired xAI.
The integration story isn’t only corporate charts. It’s in transactions and product plans—some of them measured in hundreds of millions of dollars, others in the kind of engineering promises that can move markets even before a first prototype is shipped.
Tesla and SpaceX are buying from each other
SpaceX has been lending rocket-boosting technology to Tesla’s upcoming hyper-powered sports car, Musk said.
SpaceX is also a major customer of Tesla’s energy business. In SpaceX’s S-1 securities filing, the rocket and AI company said it spent $697 million on Tesla Megapack battery products across 2024 and 2025.
That spending isn’t one-way. Musk has said that Tesla’s long-awaited next-generation Roadster will be a “Tesla/SpaceX collab” and feature SpaceX-built cold-gas thrusters.
The Roadster’s launch timeline has repeatedly slipped; Musk previously penciled an unveil in for April 1. “It’s gonna be really cool, and it’s gonna have some rocket technology in it,” he said during a 2024 sit-down with Don Lemon.
Tesla’s AI ambitions are increasingly tied to xAI
Tesla’s push deeper into AI is also being built with xAI in mind. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said a $2 billion investment in his software company would help build out Tesla’s AI software, including its self-driving ambitions.
Tesla’s January earnings disclosed that it had agreed to invest $2 billion in xAI. The company also described a related “framework agreement” to explore additional collaboration opportunities.
Tesla has already integrated xAI’s Grok into its vehicles, letting drivers chat with the AI and use it to add and edit navigation destinations. Videos have also shown early versions of Tesla’s in-development Optimus robot using xAI’s Grok AI chatbot for its voice.
SpaceX and The Boring Company have bought Tesla vehicles
For The Boring Company, the coordination is visible in the way its tunnels are served. The company—operating tunnels in Las Vegas and Texas—uses fleets of Tesla vehicles to transport passengers through its underground systems.
The tunnel builder has also constructed tunnels around Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin.
SpaceX’s paperwork ahead of the public offering offered another concrete example of demand inside the ecosystem: SpaceX reported buying $131 million worth of Cybertrucks.
Musk’s employees move between companies
Coordination also happens through people. Not long after Musk acquired Twitter, he brought Tesla engineers into Twitter’s offices to work on its code base.
In 2022. about a month after Musk bought Twitter—now known as X—court filings said Musk sent roughly 50 Tesla employees to X’s headquarters to help overhaul its code-review systems. Musk later argued in court that the Tesla employees had “volunteered” to do the work and that their temporary reassignment should not concern Tesla’s board.
Executives share overlapping functions on several of Musk’s companies, too, according to org charts obtained by Business Insider. Charlie Kuehmann, the vice president of materials and engineering at Tesla, also holds the same title at SpaceX.
The growing web of internal deals has been turning up in investor and analyst conversations about whether Musk’s companies are drifting toward something closer to a single vertically integrated enterprise. And even if attention centers on a potential SpaceX–Tesla combination, the story has been broader from the start.
Lou Whiteman, a contributing analyst at The Motley Fool, put it this way in January: “In Tesla’s case, an important factor to consider is that investors are buying into Elon Musk’s vision for the future as much as they are buying into an automaker or clean energy company.”
He added: “Since this group of companies, public and private, combine to represent Elon Musk’s full vision of the future, I’d bet that many investors are happy to see Tesla involved in all aspects of ‘Elon Inc.’”
SpaceX Tesla Gwynne Shotwell Elon Musk xAI X Tesla Megapack Cybertrucks The Boring Company Roadster Grok Optimus cold-gas thrusters mega-merger