After the biggest initial public offering in history, why not the biggest acquisition? Since SpaceX went public at the end of last week, Wall Street has been simmering with the idea that a union with Tesla, long seen as likely, will be the next step. But if a deal is indeed on the cards, it probably will not be for the reasons usually given.
The potential combination is generally viewed as an inevitable industrial convergence of Elon Musk’s various business interests, with AI as the glue holding it all together. But if that is a reason for combining space rockets, electric vehicles, humanoid robots and a social network under a single roof, almost any collection of assets might seem to belong in a new age industrial conglomerate.
In the companies that together make up the Muskverse, meanwhile, there has always been an overriding force driving synergy: whatever he cares most about in that particular moment. It has not required a full merger, for instance, for Tesla and SpaceX to join forces on important strategic projects. These include investing in a chip fabrication plant or working together on building an enterprise AI platform.