On the Tesla Q2 earnings call the evening of July 22, an analyst asked Elon Musk the question that’s top of mind for shareholders in his two largest ventures: Is SpaceX planning to buy the EV, battery and robot-maker? Musk responded that “We can’t talk about combining companies and things like that on an earnings call. It’s got to be done with the appropriate process,” an answer that did nothing to lessen the chance that he’s seriously mulling a tie-up. Musk then proceeded to effectively laud the benefits of a potential union, citing the many collaborations, and “more and more overlap…on so many fronts.” Musk noted the Digital Optimus “human office worker” project, a SpaceX-Tesla JV, is powered by the Grok AI chatbot developed by the rocket enterprise’s xAI unit, and that mobile and internet services provided by the SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network “getting integrated into all our car vehicles.”
Musk’s new comments suggest that a SpaceX-Tesla merger is a strong possibility. So it’s worth considering how much more financially stressful a deal looks today, especially for SpaceX shareholders, than just a few weeks ago. Following SpaceX’s widely-heralded IPO on June 12, its stock jumped from the offer price of $135 to peak at $211 on July 16. At that point, it boasted a valuation of $2.8 trillion. Analysts at the 15 firms that participated in the underwriting, among them Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan, predicted that the bump was durable, and on average, posited that the share price would stand at around $225 in 12 to 18 months.
