Elon Musk Is Rolling xAI Into SpaceX--Creating the World's Most Valuable Private Company By fusing SpaceX and xAI--which acquired X last year--Elon Musk tightens his grip over technologies that shape national security, social media, and artificial intelligence. Elon Musk's rocket and satellite company SpaceX is acquiring his AI startup xAI, the centibillionaire announced on Monday. In a blog post, Musk said the acquisition was warranted because global electricity demand for AI cannot be met with "terrestrial solutions," and Silicon Valley will soon need to build data centers in space to power its AI ambitions. "In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale," Musk wrote. "The only logical solution therefore is to transport these resource-intensive efforts to a location with vast power and space. I mean, space is called'space' for a reason."

It follows reports that SpaceX is planning an IPO as early as this year. Two Elon Musk companies are reportedly planning to merge. On Thursday, reported that SpaceX and xAI are holding merger talks ahead of a planned IPO. Part of their plan is to launch AI data centers into space (but unfortunately, only as far as Earth's orbit). Last week, it was reported that Musk planned to take SpaceX public despite having once said it wouldn't happen until the company had a presence on Mars.