SpaceX said on 2 February that it had acquired xAI, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company and the developer of the Grok chatbot, in a share-for-share deal that Reuters reported valued xAI at $250bn.
Why Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is buying X.AI Holdings Corp. (xAI)
Musk presented the deal as uniting his AI and space ambitions, combining a rocket and satellite maker with an AI developer whose costs are driven largely by chips, data centres and energy. Reuters reported that the combination could support SpaceX's data-centre ambitions as Musk competes with Google, Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI.
Deal terms and financing
No financial terms were published. A person familiar with the matter told Reuters the transaction valued SpaceX at $1tn and xAI at $250bn. SpaceX's 10-Q for the second quarter of 2026 states that it completed the acquisition of X.AI Holdings Corp. on 2 February 2026 through a share exchange, with xAI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary, and accounts for it as a common-control merger.
Regulatory approvals and timing
The deal completed on announcement. Reuters noted it could draw scrutiny over governance, valuation and conflicts of interest given Musk's overlapping roles, and that SpaceX's federal contracts give NASA, the Defense Department and intelligence agencies some authority to review transactions. SpaceX subsequently completed an initial public offering in June 2026.
Market context
According to LSEG data cited by Reuters, the purchase overtook Vodafone's $203bn takeover of Mannesmann in 2000 as the largest M&A deal on record. xAI had absorbed X Holdings, the former Twitter, through a share swap in March 2025.
