Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI are in discussions to merge ahead of a blockbuster public offering planned for later this year. The combination would bring Musk’s rockets, Starlink satellites, the X social media platform and Grok AI chatbot under one roof, according to a person briefed on the matter and two recent company filings seen by Reuters. […]
Under the proposed merger, shares of xAI would be exchanged for shares in SpaceX. Two entities have been set up in Nevada to facilitate the transaction, the person said. Corporate filings in Nevada show that those entities were set up on January 21. One of them, a limited liability company, lists SpaceX and Bret Johnsen, the company’s chief financial officer, as managing members, while the other lists Johnsen as the company’s only officer, the filings show. The filings don’t contain additional information about the purpose of the companies or their role in any deal.
Un articolo di Alan Boyle su Cosmic Log riporta alcune delle dichiarazioni di Musk …
“By directly harnessing near-constant solar power with little operating or maintenance costs, these satellites will transform our ability to scale compute. It’s always sunny in space!” Musk wrote. “Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers is a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization, one that can harness the sun’s full power, while supporting AI-driven applications for billions of people today and ensuring humanity’s multiplanetary future.”
“The sheer number of satellites that will be needed for space-based data centers will push Starship to even greater heights,” he wrote. “With launches every hour carrying 200 tons per flight, Starship will deliver millions of tons to orbit and beyond per year, enabling an exciting future where humanity is out exploring amongst the stars.”
“By using an electromagnetic mass driver and lunar manufacturing, it is possible to put 500 to 1,000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the sun’s power,” Musk wrote. “The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centers a reality will fund and enable self-growing bases on the moon, an entire civilization on Mars and ultimately expansion to the universe.”
… e alcune critiche al progetto:
Martin Peers, co-executive editor of The Information, said “there’s no question this move is financially motivated.”
“Musk may be the richest man in the world, but he is facing the same financial realities the leaders of other AI startups face: It’s very difficult to compete in AI development with deep-pocketed tech giants like Google and Meta Platforms, which own cash machines in their advertising businesses,” Peers wrote in The Briefing.
Un secondo aricolo della CNBC con qualche informazione aggiuntiva:
Public records with the state of Nevada obtained by CNBC indicate that the deal was completed on Feb. 2, with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. listed as the “managing member” of X.AI Holdings. […]
Tim Farrar, president of satellite and telecom industry research firm TMF Associates, said SpaceX can’t put that kind of money to work towards its existing business because there are only so many rocket launches available to get its Starlink satellites up into space each year.
Folding xAI into SpaceX, Farrar said, allows Musk to capitalize on investors’ insatiable appetite for AI holdings, while also securing the AI company’s financial position despite its mounting losses. According to a report from The Information late Monday, xAI has told investors that it burned about $9.5 billion through the first nine months of 2025.
Nei giorni scorsi SpaceX aveva inviato una richiesta alla FCC per una costellazione di un milione di satelliti in orbita.
L’ingegneria finanziaria è ufficialmente sbarcata nello spazio.
Quello che Elon sta facendo oggi con SpaceX è stato già fatto in passato da Tesla, la sua vecchia gallina dalle uova d’oro che ormai arranca e incomincia il suo trend di decrescita, ma le prove generali furono fatte prima ancora con Solar City poi assorbita (leggi salvata ) maldestramente da Tesla .
In questi anni si sono affinate le tecniche oltre che sono aumentati gli agganci finanziari e politici.
La corsa all oro è nel DNA Americano, qualche volta funziona altre volte si rivelano solo ed esclusivamente bolle finanziarie che lasciano per strada morti e macerie ma anche qualche dritto che porta a casa ingenti profitti.
Elon nel tempo le sta percorrendo e cavalcando tutte, qualche volta gli va bene portando a casa qualche ottimo o interessante prodotto (M3, MY, FALCON 9) altre gli va male (i flop sono tanti anche se poco narrati) , ma grazie all ingegneria finanziaria e qualche prodotto ben riuscito lui è sempre sul pezzo più forte che mai (complimenti a lui) . Solare (un flop poi salvato da Tesla) . Movimentazione elettrica (ormai entrata in crisi iniziata la trasformazione sulla produzione robotica), AI bisogna sbrigarsi prima che il mercato si accorga delle valutazioni stratosferiche e aggiusti il tiro.
Quindi che famo?
Abbiamo SpaceX che oggi gode di fiducia , pompiamola a mille e la buttiamo sul mercato che poi Dio vede e provvede.
Un milione di satelliti come data center (che ci vuole) , AI e robotica degne di un film di fantascienza che fa sempre la sua sporca figura, un futuro ricco di vendite (servizi ) e proventi, tanti tanti proventi, più di un trilione di valutazione iniziale (noccioline) .
Per ora però sborsate ragazzi che il piatto piange a breve magari bisognerà assorbire (leggi salvare) anche altre aziende del gruppo che per i guadagni ci sta sempre tempo per l’ingegneria finanziaria. Alla prox puntata.
Articolo di Reuters, questa volta sulle potenzialità di uno Starlink-phone.
(sono sempre speculazioni legate all’IPO quindi eviterei di inquinare il thread dedicato a Starlink)
With a SpaceX IPO expected this year, the company has plans for its revenue-generating Starlink business that could expand its reach into new markets, including a Starlink phone, direct-to-device internet and a space-tracking service, sources familiar with the matter said. […]
The plans include making a mobile device connected to its Starlink satellite internet constellation that could rival smartphones, according to three people familiar with the plans.
Specifics on the device’s design or when Musk plans to develop the product are unclear. Starlink in recent years has worked with T-Mobile to bring Starlink internet directly into mobile phones on that network, a different effort than SpaceX producing a phone itself. […]
“It would be a very different device than current phones,” Musk said. “Optimized purely for running max performance/watt neural nets,” referring to the brain-like computing hardware behind artificial intelligence. Replying to a user on X who shared the Reuters report, Musk said: “we are not developing a phone.”
E’ riportato anche un dato sul bilancio di SpaceX che punta a un articolo pubblicato in esclusiva da Reuters pochi giorni fa.
Starlink is a vital profit generator for SpaceX. Last year, the company generated about $8 billion in profit on $15 billion to $16 billion of revenue, two people familiar with the company’s results said, with Starlink as the main revenue driver, accounting for about 50% to 80% of the total.
Sì, è riportato nell’articolo. Musk ha parlato di un “very different device than current phones, optimized purely for running max performance/watt neural nets,” referring to the brain-like computing hardware behind artificial intelligence. Che onestamente non ho idea di cosa voglia dire.
E’ stato pubblicato il video del xAI “All Hands” meeting in cui Musk ha presentato la sua “visione” di lungo termine.
La trascrizione di parte del suo intervento, via Gizmodo:
So the—the next step beyond Earth data centers are Earth orbital data centers, and we’ll be launching, with SpaceX, orbital data centers at the 100 to 200 gigawatt per year level. Not cumulative. I mean per year. And ultimately, we see a path to maybe launching as much as a terawatt per year of compute from earth.
But what if you want to go beyond a mere terawatt per year? In order to do that you have to go to the moon.
So, by having factories on the moon, building AI satellites, and having a mass driver—which is the kinda thing you really only learn about in, read about in, science fiction, but we’re gonna make it real—we’re actually gonna have a mass driver on the moon. And if you do that, you can go several orders of magnitude greater. You can go to 1,000 gigawatts or more per year, and ultimately get to maybe a millionth, and then, maybe a thousandth, and maybe even a few percent of the sun’s energy.
It’s difficult to imagine what an intelligence of that scale would think about, but it’s gonna be incredibly exciting to see it happen. I really wanna see the mass driver on the moon that is shooting AI satellites into deep space. Just going like “shoom, shoom,” just one after the other. I can’t imagine anything more epic than a mass driver on the moon, and a self-sustaining city on the moon, and then going beyond the moon to Mars, going throughout our solar system, and ultimately being out there among the stars, and visiting all these star systems.
Maybe we’ll meet aliens. Maybe we’ll see some civilizations that lasted for millions of years. And we’ll find the remnants of ancient alien civilizations. But the only way we’re gonna do that is if we go out there and we explore. And this is a path to making it happen. Thank you.”
Sullo stesso argomento, un articolo del New York Times:
Elon Musk told employees at xAI, his artificial intelligence company, on Tuesday evening that the company needed a factory on the moon to build A.I. satellites and a massive catapult to launch them into space.
Una delle cose interessanti della IPO che ci consentirà di valutare meglio (costi-benefici) di SpaceX e dei suoi programmi e servizi.
Per il resto tutto secondo programma e stile Muskiano, alcune cose ovviamente interessanti e vedremo cosa riusciranno a fare, altre si fa fatica nel valutarle almeno per me oggi seriamente.
Secondo l’articolo di International Business Times, la mossa evidenzia lo spostamento del focus dell’azienda verso l’intelligenza artificiale e dovrebbe servire a colmare il divario che SpaceX, dopo la fusione con xAI, sconta nei confronti della concorrenza del settore.
The agreement serves as a direct reaction to the growing strain on Musk’s goals for the sector. He had openly admitted that xAI—the venture he started and later folded into SpaceX this February—was falling behind competitors when it came to programming power.
After that confession, he moved to cut staff numbers at xAI through a wave of lay-offs. At the same time, he launched a bold recruitment drive to snatch top developers from rival firms, including two of Cursor’s own experts, Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg.
SpaceX has spent more than $15 billion developing its next-generation Starship rocket, according to the company’s IPO registration reviewed by Reuters, a sum that dwarfs the cost of its workhorse Falcon rocket as Elon Musk’s space company nears a decade trying to perfect a fully reusable launch system.
SpaceX devoted $3 billion to research and development in 2025 for its space segment, the entirety of which went to the Starship program, the filing shows, a sharp jump from the $1.8 billion spent in that segment the prior year.
SpaceX, which is expected to target an initial valuation of $1.5 trillion or more, has a financial picture that is notably worse than any other megacap U.S. company. It lost $4.9 billion last year on revenue of $18.7 billion.
The losses widened this year: In the first quarter, SpaceX lost $4.3 billion on $4.7 billion of revenue.
Notevole l’impatto della fusione con xAI.
Total capital expenditures came in at $20.7 billion, much of which came from xAI, which spent $12.7 billion. The launch and satellite businesses spent $8 billion combined in capex last year.
Una starship che si schianta dovrebbe andare in opex, è indubbiamente un prodotto consumabile, come siano riusciti a metterla in capex non lo so, di certo questa manovra finanziaria gonfia di tanto il valore dell’azienda pre IPO.
Exclusive: Musk’s SpaceX in merger talks with xAI ahead of planned IPO, source says
