(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 (GOOGL.O) Google, Meta, Amazon-backed Anthropic and OpenAI.
Here are some key facts about SpaceX and xAI:
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SPACEX
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XAI
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|---|---|---|
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Founded
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2002
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2023
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Founders
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Elon Musk
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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.
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Key executives
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– Elon Musk, CEO
– Bret Johnsen, CFO – Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO |
– Elon Musk, CEO
– Anthony Armstrong, CFO |
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Headquarters
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Starbase, Texas
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Palo Alto, California
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Valuation
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$1 trillion in the SpaceX-xAI deal. Previously, the firm was valued at $800 billion in a December insider share sale.
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$250 billion in the deal. The startup was valued at $230 billion in November, according to the Wall Street Journal.
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Financials
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SpaceX generated about $8 billion in profit on $15 billion-$16 billion of revenue last year, Reuters reported last month.
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xAI’s net loss widened to $1.46 billion in the September quarter from $1 billion in the prior quarter, Bloomberg News reported last month. Revenue nearly doubled to $107 million.
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Funding
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SpaceX plans to go public sometime this year, Reuters and other media have reported. Based on its most recent financials, some banks estimate the company could raise more than $50 billion at a valuation exceeding $1.5 trillion.
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Last month, xAI said it raised $20 billion in an upsized Series E funding round, with participation from Valor Equity Partners, StepStone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company and Qatar Investment Authority.
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Reporting by Anhata Rooprai and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas
