Feb 3 (Reuters) – Elon Musk said on Monday SpaceX has acquired his artificial intelligence startup xAI in a record-setting deal, unifying the billionaire’s AI and space ambitions by combining the rocket-and-satellite company with the maker of the Grok chatbot.
The deal, first reported by Reuters last week, represents one of the most ambitious mergers in the technology sector yet. It values SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion, a person familiar with the matter said.
The deal would bolster Musk’s data-center ambitions as competition heats up further in the AI race with rivals such as Alphabet’s Google, Meta, Amazon-backed Anthropic and OpenAI.
Here are some key facts about SpaceX and xAI:
SPACEX XAI
Founded 2002 2023
Founders Elon Musk Founding team included
Musk, former Google
DeepMind engineer Igor
Babuschkin, former
Microsoft executive Greg
Yang, and former Google
research scientists
Christian Szegedy and
Tony Wu.
Key – Elon Musk, CEO – Elon Musk, CEO
executives – Bret Johnsen, CFO – Anthony Armstrong, CFO
– Gwynne Shotwell,
President and COO
Headquarters Starbase, Texas Palo Alto, California
Valuation $1 trillion in the $250 billion in the
SpaceX-xAI deal. deal. The startup was
Previously, the firm valued at $230 billion
was valued at $800 in November, according
billion in a December to the Wall Street
insider share sale. Journal.
Financials SpaceX generated about xAI’s net loss widened
$8 billion in profit to $1.46 billion in the
on $15 billion-$16 September quarter from
billion of revenue $1 billion in the prior
last year, Reuters quarter, Bloomberg News
reported last month. reported last month.
Revenue nearly doubled
to $107 million.
Funding SpaceX plans to go Last month, xAI said it
public sometime this raised $20 billion in an
year, Reuters and upsized Series E funding
other media have round, with
reported. Based on its participation from Valor
most recent Equity Partners,
financials, some banks StepStone Group,
estimate the company Fidelity Management &
could raise more than Research Company and
$50 billion at a Qatar Investment
valuation exceeding Authority.
$1.5 trillion.
(Reporting by Anhata Rooprai and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)
