{"id":279911,"date":"2026-02-12T05:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T05:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/279911\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T05:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T05:19:11","slug":"elon-musk-eyes-moon-facility-plus-catapult-to-send-ai-satellites-into-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/279911\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk Eyes Moon Facility, Plus Catapult to Send AI Satellites Into Orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"

During a recent staff meeting at artificial-intelligence company xAI, CEO\u00a0Elon Musk<\/a> reportedly told employees that he wants to build an AI satellite factory on the moon, The New York Times<\/a> reports. Musk also said he wants a giant catapult at the factory that would launch those satellites into space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A representative for xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

This isn’t the first time the tech mogul has toyed with the idea of moving operating facilities to space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AI <\/a> <\/p>\n

“Current advances in AI are dependent on large terrestrial data centers, which require immense amounts of power and cooling,” Musk said in a statement last week after his companies\u00a0SpaceX and xAI merged<\/a>. “Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term, without imposing hardship on communities and the environment. In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale.”<\/p>\n

And this “space-based AI” could happen sooner rather than later if it’s up to the billionaire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“By far the cheapest place to put AI will be space in 36 months or less,” Musk reportedly said<\/a> during a recent appearance on the podcast Cheeky Pint<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If the moon mission is successful, Musk seems to have his eye on establishing a colony on Mars next<\/a>. For years, he has described involvement with Mars as a necessary step in safeguarding humanity’s future, framing space colonization as both a necessary backup plan and the next frontier of exploration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During a recent staff meeting at artificial-intelligence company xAI, CEO\u00a0Elon Musk reportedly told employees that he wants to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-279911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}