{"id":277965,"date":"2026-02-03T04:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/277965\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T04:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:46:09","slug":"musks-spacex-acquires-xai-giving-company-a-combined-valuation-of-1-25tn-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/277965\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk\u2019s SpaceX acquires xAI, giving company a combined valuation of $1.25tn \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk<\/a>\u2019s SpaceX has acquired xAI, in a deal that encompasses the billionaire\u2019s increasingly costly ambitions to dominate artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a> and space exploration.<\/p>\n

The transaction was announced in a statement on SpaceX\u2019s website signed by Musk and confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report.<\/p>\n

The statement said SpaceX<\/a> acquired xAI to \u201cform the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world\u2019s foremost real-time information and free speech platform\u201d.<\/p>\n

The deal, which gives the combined company a valuation of $1.25 trillion (\u20ac1.06 trillion), was announced to employees in a memo on Monday, Bloomberg News reported earlier. The firm is expected to price the shares at $526.59 each, according to people familiar with the matter, asking not to be identified as the information isn\u2019t public.<\/p>\n

Representatives for SpaceX and xAI didn\u2019t immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

The deal brings together two of the largest closely-held companies in the world. XAI raised funds at a $230 billion valuation in January, while SpaceX was set to go ahead with a share sale in December at a valuation of about $800 billion.<\/p>\n

Terms of the offering including price and valuation weren\u2019t disclosed in the statement on SpaceX\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

The company is still expecting to hold an initial public offering later this year, one of the people said. SpaceX had been planning an IPO that could raise as much as $50 billion.<\/p>\n

In explaining the rationale for the deal, Musk said in the statement that the least expensive way to do AI computations within two to three years will be in space.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis cost-efficiency alone will enable innovative companies to forge ahead in training their AI models and processing data at unprecedented speeds and scales, accelerating breakthroughs in our understanding of physics and invention of technologies to benefit humanity,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

SpaceX is requesting permission to launch as many as a million satellites into the Earth\u2019s orbit for the plan, according to a filing last Friday.<\/p>\n

The offering further entangles Musk\u2019s various business ventures. The billionaire acquired social media platform Twitter in late 2022, renamed it X, then merged the site with his AI startup xAI in a $33 billion deal.<\/p>\n

XAI, which also operates chatbot Grok, is an expensive operation, burning around $1 billion a month in service of its stated ambition to gain \u201ca deeper understanding of our universe.\u201d A merger with SpaceX pools capital, talent, access to computing power \u2013 and blurs corporate boundaries.<\/p>\n

Unlike some of Musk\u2019s other ventures, SpaceX stands out as arguably his most successful and consistent business. The company, the only American one that can routinely send astronauts to and from the International Space Station, is a key rocket-launch provider for both NASA and the US Department of Defence, which the White House has moved to rename the Department of War.<\/p>\n

The increasing revenue it\u2019s generating from the Starlink network of more than 9,000 satellites is even more significant, now outpacing launch sales and presenting a potential source of funding for xAI\u2019s capital-intensive business. – Copyright 2026 Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX has acquired xAI, in a deal that encompasses the billionaire\u2019s increasingly costly ambitions to dominate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[218,605,61,60,82,247,53956],"class_list":{"0":"post-277965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-elon-musk","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-space","14":"tag-space-x"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}