Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. SpaceX and Tesla, both led by Elon Musk, may combine in a historic merger. See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Elon Musk says SpaceX and Tesla are considering a tie-up that could become the largest corporate merger ever, bringing rockets, electric vehicles and artificial intelligence under one roof. The goal would be to combine SpaceX's computing, as well as Starlink and AI capabilities with Tesla's robotaxis, autonomous-driving plans and robots.

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SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to discuss the possibility of a merger, Elon Musk has revealed during the former's earnings call for the third quarter of 2026. Musk, who serves as CEO for both companies, said the committees were formed at the request of shareholders. The committees are made up of independent directors from SpaceX and Tesla. Musk himself can't be part of the discussions, as someone who's considered a "conflicted party," along with his brother Kimbal Musk. Based on the corporate information listed on the companies' websites, Tesla has seven independent directors, while SpaceX has six. However, Ira Ehrenpreis, the chairperson for Tesla's Compensation and Nominating and Governance committees, also joined SpaceX's board in February.

Why does Elon Musk want to merge Tesla and SpaceX? Elon Musk has spent years building Tesla and SpaceX into a pair of trillion-dollar technology empires. Now, he is considering bringing them together . Asked on Tuesday whether a merger would be a good idea, Musk was clear: Yes. The prospect is more than hypothetical.

Elon Musk has revealed that SpaceX and Tesla are exploring a possible merger, a tie-up that would create a corporate colossus worth more than $3 trillion. Musk said on Tuesday that his two largest companies had established special committees to explore a merger. "They've got to come up with something, and then that's got to be put to the shareholders as a vote," Musk said on a SpaceX earnings call. Musk, the world's richest man with a net worth of more than $900bn, said that a merger would need to clear the "high hurdle" of a 50 percent vote among Tesla shareholders "Some people out there assume that a SpaceX and Tesla merger is a certainty, and I think that would be overstating it," Musk said. "Do I think it would be a good idea? But at the end of the day, the shareholders have to be supportive of this."

GoPro is the latest surprising name to move into the AI data center market amid a merger with an optical-photonics company called Starman Optical. The shareholders of GoPro, which will remain publicly listed, will receive 285 million when the deal closes and retain around 10 percent ownership. GoPro's outstanding debt of around 92 million will be paid too. The merger is subject to shareholder agreement, as well as regulatory approvals and closing conditions. GoPro expects the deal to close by the end of 2026.

Proton's Andy Yen Says It Will Have To Proton's CEO is a champion of encryption for everyone. So why is he going all in on un-encryptable AI? In the eyes of many privacy advocates, AI is just another surveillance technology . It supercharges online tracking and real-world spying tools, sifts through vast troves of everyone's data to spit out its results, and then encourages users to share their deepest secrets and desires with a cloud-hosted large-language model. Surveillance capitalism made AI possible, and AI returns the favor by making surveillance more powerful and the businesses that run on it more data-rich and profitable than ever. Andy Yen is among the most influential voices in the tech industry who equates AI with privacy invasion. He says the push to integrate AI into every consumer tech product--whether people want it or not--is driving new users in droves to Proton's products, which are, put simply, the end-to-end encrypted versions of every Google service from Gmail to Google Docs, Sheets, Calendar, and Meet. Yet Yen is anti-AI, he says, any more than he is anti-internet. In late June, Proton released the latest version of its very own AI chatbot, Lumo--just one way that Proton is integrating AI ever more deeply into its suite of tools, but seeking to do so in a way that's more voluntary and preserves users' privacy far more than the typical tech giant. That willingness to embrace the apparent contradiction between AI and privacy is just one way in which Yen's views don't cut cleanly across party lines--from current US politics to the lessons of Edward Snowden's leaks to the question of the best corporate structure for a tech company that's not solely designed to maximize profit. You can read our conversation about all of it here or listen wherever you get your podcasts. ANDY GREENBERG: I want to start by asking about your background and the origin story of Proton. You're a trained particle physicist. You worked at CERN, the nuclear research facility, but you were inspired by the leaks of Edward Snowden back in 2013 to create Proton, right? I'm not actually a tech person or even an entrepreneur by training, so I really happened into this field a little bit by accident. I used to work at the Large Hadron Collider, which is a particle accelerator.

EasyJet agrees to £5.7bn takeover by US firm No-frills airline EasyJet has agreed to be taken over in a £5.7bn deal by US firm Apollo after a rival bidder dropped out. The takeover was agreed after US investment firm Castlelake, which had made a series of offers for the carrier, said it was withdrawing from the bid battle. Apollo said it wants to help the airline grow and that it does not intend to cut any jobs in the first 12 months after the takeover has been completed, implying that passengers can expect largely the same service. EasyJet is one of Europe's largest airlines. It employs more than 19,000 people, and flies around 1,200 routes across 35 European countries.

Universal rejects billionaire Bill Ackman's takeover bid Universal Music Group, the entertainment giant behind acts such as Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Kendrick Lamar, has rejected a takeover offer by billionaire Bill Ackman's investment firm. The music giant said Pershing Square's $64.3bn (£48bn) takeover offer was not in the best interests of the company, shareholders, artists, fans and other stakeholders. Universal said the offer fundamentally and materially undervalues the business, which also runs Abbey Road Studios and owns labels such as EMI and Island Records. Pershing Square, which already owns a stake in Universal, declined to comment on the rejection. The investment firm launched its takeover bid for the world's largest music company in April, a move which would have seen it listed as a new company in America.

How the Pope's Magnifica Humanitas offers a template for individuals to meet the AI moment Despite a lack of regulation, we still have the ability to steer artificial intelligence in ways that can benefit our common humanity. Pope Leo XIV's new encyclical on artificial intelligence includes a statement that warrants serious attention from technologists and policymakers: "Technology is never neutral." As the pope says, the choice before us--the choice AI presents--is one between the Tower of Babel and the rebuilding of our common humanity. In the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, humans sought to build a massive structure that reached all the way to Heaven, only to have their project thwarted when God made those involved unable to understand one another. It was a pursuit fixated on relentless growth, divorced from any concern about God's commandments or the human cost. It resulted in failure and atomization.