SpaceX and Tesla Boards Have Committees Studying a Merger, Musk Says, but No Deal Is Set

Independent directors at both SpaceX and Tesla have set up special committees to study combining the two companies, Elon Musk told investors Tuesday, though he warned against treating a deal as settled.

Musk, who runs both businesses, raised the subject during the call SpaceX held Tuesday to go over its July-September results, after an analyst asked him to weigh the upside and downside of a tie-up. Shareholders had asked for the committees, he said, and because he has a conflict of interest he is shut out of their talks. He likened the arrangement to an "odd kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking, and I can't be in the conversation."

"I think some people out there assume that a SpaceX and Tesla merger is a certainty. And I think that would be overstating it," Musk said. Asked whether he favored the idea, he said yes, but he noted that Tesla would need backing from a majority of all its shares, counting those that do not vote, a bar he described as "quite a high hurdle."

"The special committees have not reached agreement on the terms of any transaction. And obviously, there's no guarantee that they will," he said. Whatever the panels produce would then go to shareholders for a vote, he added. He gave no timetable.

The talk of a merger came as SpaceX reported a quarter in which sales grew about two and a half times over on the back of artificial intelligence work. In its earnings release filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company put revenue for the three months through September at $14.6 billion, against $5.6 billion in the same stretch of 2025, a 161% gain. It earned $4.4 billion, reversing a $1.1 billion loss. Adjusted EBITDA, a profit gauge that leaves out interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, reached $8.8 billion, compared with $2.2 billion.

The biggest driver was the unit SpaceX calls Super Intelligence, which leases data-center computing power to AI developers. That unit took in $7.56 billion, up from $813 million a year before, putting it ahead of the Starlink-based Connectivity unit, which grew 69% to about $5.25 billion. Launch and other work in the Space segment brought in roughly $1.77 billion.

All of that growth is costing a great deal. Capital spending for the quarter was $19.6 billion, and about $16.4 billion of it went to the AI unit, the filing shows. Executives said the company had 1.7 gigawatts of compute installed when September ended and expects to have 2.5 to 3 gigawatts running before the year is out.

Musk went further on 2027. "I would be surprised if we brought on less than 13 gigawatts of compute by the end of next year," he said, adding that supplies of power, cooling and electrical gear are a limiting factor.

SpaceX also restated its ambition in mobile phone service. Gwynne Shotwell, a top SpaceX executive, said the priority is to fly its next group of direct-to-phone satellites through next year and fold in recently bought airwaves so that service can begin "in early 2028." Musk said he sees "a clear path to several hundred billion dollars a year in connectivity revenue."

That plan was a topic on AT&T's own call a day later, after the carrier posted third-quarter results. Chief Executive John Stankey argued that a single block of low-frequency airwaves would not upend the market. "I wouldn't over rotate on what I would call one carrier of low band spectrum," he said. He told analysts that AT&T, depending on the city, uses six to eight such blocks, and that in a market like Chicago, 40% to 45% of daily traffic begins inside buildings, where satellite signals struggle.

He did give satellite operators some credit. Low-orbit networks, he said, "are fantastic for delivering bandwidth to rural areas" and could prove the most efficient way to serve sparsely settled places.

Any combination of SpaceX and Tesla would still have to clear both committees and both sets of shareholders before it could happen.