Musk Open to SpaceX-Tesla Merger as Nvidia and Meta Cite Compute Limits

what happened

On SpaceX's third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, Elon Musk said a tie-up with Tesla would be a good idea, though he stressed that nothing is settled. The boards of both companies have set up special committees made up of independent directors, but those panels have not yet agreed on any terms. Musk also said SpaceX's Super Intelligence unit, which rents out computing capacity and runs Grok, brought in $7.6 billion in revenue and now outstrips Starlink. He argued that power, cooling and infrastructure, rather than chips, now hold back AI rollouts, and said SpaceX aims to add roughly 20 gigawatts by the end of 2027.

At GTC Berlin, Jensen Huang said Nvidia is pushing lenders to accept its chips as collateral, arguing that computing capacity can be financed like other productive assets. He put a one-gigawatt AI factory at about $50 billion and estimated it could bring in around $40 billion a year in revenue. Mark Zuckerberg, speaking on Meta's earnings call, said Muse, the company's AI assistant, has drawn sign-ups from over ten million users in the United States and Canada, and that compute shortages are preventing a global launch. Meta also unveiled a non-voting Class C share and a two-for-one split slated for late January.

Stocktwits noted that the Nasdaq Composite posted its weakest session since June on Thursday, as worries over AI spending and higher oil prices hit chip stocks.

why it matters

The message for investors is that AI growth is constrained by power and financing as well as demand. That keeps attention on makers of power equipment and generation, which Stocktwits said gained after Musk's remarks, while doubts about how huge spending pays back weigh on tech stocks.

market impact

Tech and power-equipment stocks: AI demand is limited by electricity and financing, a pressure point for chip names

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