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# Musk says merging SpaceX and Tesla is a good idea, and he is not allowed in the talks
- URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/musk-spacex-tesla-merger-committees/
- Published: 2026-10-22T03:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-22T03:00:00.000Z
- Description: Committees of independent directors at both companies are studying a possible deal, as SpaceX reports its first quarterly profit since listing.
- Author: Christian Maidman
- Tags: Companies, Business Bagel News

Elon Musk runs both companies and is the biggest individual shareholder in each, which is exactly why he cannot negotiate this one. On SpaceX's third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, he said both boards had set up special committees of independent directors to look at a possible merger, and that shareholders had asked for them.

"Because I'm a conflicted party, I can't actually be in the discussions of the special committees," he said, describing it as "an odd kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking, and I can't be in the conversation."

He still thinks it would be a good idea, and pointed to what the two could gain by working together on AI software and robots, and on Terafab, a chip-making project they already share. He also said people treating a merger as a certainty were overstating it, and that the committees have not agreed terms on anything.

## Why Tesla is the harder vote

Musk owns 48.4% of SpaceX and controls more than 82% of its votes, through shares that carry extra voting rights. Winning over SpaceX's side should be the easy part.

Tesla is different. He holds about 20% of it, and any deal would need a majority of all Tesla shares, not just a majority of the ones that turn up to vote. A share that never votes works like a no. Musk called that "quite a high hurdle."

## The quarter that turned a profit

The comments came with SpaceX's first quarterly profit since it listed on the Nasdaq in June. It earned $4.4 billion in the three months to September, against a loss of about $1 billion a year earlier, and revenue more than doubled, to $14.6 billion.

Renting out computing power did a lot of the work. The AI business, now renamed Super Intelligence, takes in the Grok chatbot, the Cursor coding tool and the data centres SpaceX rents out to AI firms, and it brought in about half of all revenue, overtaking Starlink as the biggest earner. Starlink still grew, with revenue up 69% and 13.6 million consumer subscribers.

It is not all profit yet. TechCrunch puts SpaceX's capital spending at $19.6 billion, and over the first nine months of the year it is still $413 million in the red.

"At the end of the day, the shareholders have to be supportive of this," Musk said. SpaceX shares rose nearly 5% after hours on his comments, which is more than the committees have agreed so far.