Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Tuesday that the boards of SpaceX and Tesla had separately formed special committees to discuss the idea of a merger, taking a small step toward the possible consolidation of his two biggest companies.
Musk, who is the CEO of both companies, said that the special committees had not reached an agreement and that there was no guarantee they would. He said a merger would require support from both sets of shareholders.
“I think some people out there assume that a SpaceX and Tesla merger is a certainty, and I think that would be overstating it,” he said.
Musk spoke about the potential tie-up during a call with Wall Street analysts about SpaceX’s quarterly results, which surpassed estimates; the company’s revenue more than doubled in part from renting out computing capacity to other artificial intelligence firms.
There has been intense speculation in the stock market over whether a combination might happen, and the two companies already overlap in some areas, including semiconductor manufacturing. In January, Tesla announced that it was investing about $2 billion to acquire shares in an AI startup that’s a subsidiary of SpaceX.
Musk said that, because he’s a conflicted party under securities regulations, he is not a member of either special committee or involved in the talks. He said the committees consist of the two boards’ independent directors but did not specify the memberships.
“It’s an odd Kabuki dance, where groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation,” he said during the earnings calls. He also said that even answering a question about the idea from an analyst felt like “dancing through a minefield.”
Musk, though, endorsed the idea.
“I do think there’s a lot of merit to combining the companies, as we are pretty much in the superintelligence singularity, and there’s a lot to be gained from cooperating,” he said. He mentioned several areas of current or potential future cooperation, including AI software development, chip design and robotics.
Musk has already consolidated some of his other holdings. Last year, he merged his social media company, X, with his AI startup, called at the time xAI. Then, in February, SpaceX acquired xAI, which Musk has since renamed SpaceXSI.