Musk Calls a SpaceX-Tesla Merger 'a Good Idea' as Both Boards Form Special Committees to Review It
Elon Musk said on SpaceX's third-quarter earnings call on October 20 that the boards of SpaceX and Tesla have each formed a special committee of independent directors to evaluate a possible merger of the two companies. The committees were set up at the request of shareholders, he said; they have not agreed on any transaction terms, no deal price has been set, and a merger is not certain.
Answering a question from Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu, Musk said: "Do I think it would be a good idea? Yes." Because he is chief executive of both companies and a conflicted party, he said, he cannot take part in the special committees' discussions: "It's an odd kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can't be in the conversation." He added that treating a merger as a certainty would be overstating it, and that shareholders ultimately have to be supportive.
Musk said the case for combining rests on shared work in superintelligence software, chip design, the Terafab chip venture, robotics, and getting mass to orbit for the satellite network. A merger would need approval from a majority of all outstanding Tesla shares, a threshold he called quite a high hurdle; Tesla's proxy for its December 3 annual meeting contains no merger proposal.
Based on Tuesday's closing prices, SpaceX is worth about $2 trillion and Tesla nearly $1.5 trillion, a combined value of about $3.5 trillion. SpaceX reported third-quarter revenue of $14.58 billion, up 161% year over year, with net income of $4.4 billion and earnings per share of 35 cents, above market expectations (reported separately by GSM). SpaceX shares rose about 8% in extended trading after the announcement, while Tesla gained more than 1%. Tesla is scheduled to report its own third-quarter results after the close on October 21.
The two companies already have a capital link: Tesla agreed in January to invest about $2 billion in xAI Holdings, Musk's super intelligence company; after xAI became part of SpaceX, the investment converted into SpaceX Class A shares, and Tesla completed the purchase on March 12, according to Tesla's proxy statement. The two companies also cooperate operationally: Tesla sells energy-storage products and electric vehicles to SpaceX, and the pair work together on the Roadster sports car and the Terafab chip project; Musk's case for combining also cited SpaceX's orbital SI data center project, Starmind. CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson has said that "perhaps the only barrier" to a merger is convincing investors that it is in their best interest, which could be done by offering a "sufficiently lucrative takeout premium"; RBC analyst Tom Narayan has floated a $480-a-share price as a possible combination scenario — an analyst scenario, not announced deal terms. (GSM, via Reuters)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 马斯克（白宫官方资料图，2025年2月内阁会议，公共领域）
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