Elon Musk said on October 20 that the boards of Tesla and SpaceX have each formed special committees made up of independent directors to review a possible merger between the two companies, a combination that would create a roughly $3.5 trillion giant at current market values. Musk called a merger a good idea but said he is not a member of either committee and is not involved in the talks himself, since securities rules treat him as a conflicted party on both sides of the deal. He said the committees have not agreed on terms and there is no guarantee a deal gets done.
The talks come amid sharp swings in Musk's own net worth. He became the first U.S. dollar trillionaire when SpaceX went public in June 2026, with shares pricing at $135 and closing their first day at $161.11, but a later slide in SpaceX's stock pulled him back under that threshold within weeks. Forbes said he regained trillionaire status on October 9, then pegged his net worth at $977.2 billion on October 13 after SpaceX shares slipped again. Musk holds about 45% of SpaceX's shares and roughly 82% of its voting power, a structure built on multiple classes of stock that give him outsized control over the company.