But is this merger as foolish as it seems?
According to a new SpaceX press release with Elon Musk’s personal signature, the combined company will be a “vertically-integrated innovation engine.” According to their own estimation, the company now works in “AI, rockets, space-based Internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s leading real-time information and free speech platform”. Another way to say this might be that SpaceX is now the company behind vertical-landing rocket boosters, most of the satellites currently in orbit, very fat rockets that explode, an ISP, a microblogging app known as X, a sassy chatbot called Grok that is famous for pornographic images, and much more.
For example, SpaceX will now own Grokipedia, an AI-written, anti-woke parody of Wikipedia. And you remember the defunct 6-second video social media app Vine? Yes, SpaceX, which has billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts and is responsible for NASA’s crewed missions, now owns the rights to Vine, too. Musk claims he’s bringing it back “in AI form.”
As many have pointed out before me, SpaceX has become a truly indispensable player in humanity’s aerospace and space travel efforts through an iterative process involving an extraordinary number of spectacular and public rocket explosions, which certainly would not be tolerated if SpaceX were a government agency. It’s always walking a delicate tightrope, keeping boring people happy while also dealing with the stupid stuff and horrors that come with being run by Elon Musk.
SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell has been described by the Wall Street Journal as “a Musk translator”, especially for executives who depend on SpaceX but are sometimes nervous about his activities. In the same Journal article, former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson – who is also a Democratic former senator – called Shotwell a “steady hand” of the company, adding, “I have a lot of confidence in him. Because of that, I have a lot of confidence in SpaceX.”
In 2022, when Musk was in the midst of buying Twitter in the most chaotic way possible, Nelson says he called Shotwell, and said, “Tell me why the distraction that Elon might have on Twitter won’t affect SpaceX.”
“I assure you, it’s not,” he says, he told her. “You have nothing to worry about.”
Now imagine being Shotwell four years later. Twitter is now X. Last year, the proprietary AI chatbot on X started calling itself “MechaHitler” at one point, and then it produced photos of scantily clad children. So not only has the drama escalated, but you’re also the President and COO of the company that created it all.
And imagine Shotwell having to handle this merger while Musk, the attention-hungry celebrity CEO of this conglomerate, has spent the past few days trying to ride out any fallout or disapproval caused by the public disclosure of emails in which he repeatedly asked Jeffrey Epstein if he could have a party on his private island.
So one can only guess what Musk’s mental state was when he finalized this merger plan. But what matters to me is that he wants investors in XAI and SpaceX — and perhaps future holders of publicly traded SpaceX stock in June — to believe that this merger creates a company that matches and has a unified agenda. But you might want to take as big a hit as possible before trying to focus on that agenda as Musk described it in his press release:
This rocket and AI company will actually be an AI-in-space company, you see, because according to Musk’s estimate, “within 2 to 3 years, the lowest-cost way to generate AI computation will be in space.” After all, “in the long term, space-based AI is clearly the only way to scale.” obviously.
But training models with space calculations is just the beginning, as Musk claims that by combining these two concepts, they will “move our way toward creating a sensitive Sun to understand the universe.”
Companies don’t always have to make sense. Samsung owns hotels. Red Bull has a nature magazine. There are aerobics gyms in Konami. Sometimes these inconsistencies are rich relics from a different era for a company, but sometimes they reveal the capriciousness or pettiness of company leadership, which may be no big deal.
But then again, it’s not far-fetched to think that Elon Musk’s whims — and the fact that an economically powerful subset of Wall Street bulls thinks that whims are tantamount to wisdom — could soon take control of the world’s best-funded AI company at a time when AI is the load-bearing structure supporting the entire economy. If the IPO goes well (New York Times sources say Musk hopes to raise $50 billion), that AI company is going to be in your 401(k) while it’s also in charge of astronauts’ lives.
In other words, we are headed for a time when Wall Street bulls will have to be right. Elon Musk’s obsession may be greater than ever have to There really should be knowledge, no matter how incredible it may be. If this IPO goes well, an AI bubble better not form, and Musk’s value better not go up. Our entire well-being may depend on it.
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