🚀 Musk’s $1.25 Trillion Moonshot: Why Folding xAI Into SpaceX Could Create the Ultimate Pre-IPO Powerhouse

What’s more ambitious than two private companies run by Elon Musk?

One colossal, pre-IPO super-company that wraps rockets, artificial intelligence, orbital data centers, and Wall Street hype into a single, gravity-defying story.

That’s the bullish vision taking shape as SpaceX moves to acquire Musk’s AI startup xAI in a deal that values the combined private enterprise at an eye-popping $1.25 trillion. For optimists, it’s the ultimate Musk trade — a way to buy into space, AI, and the future itself, all at once. For skeptics, it looks like something else entirely: a profitable rocket company absorbing a cash-hungry AI venture with fuzzy economics and cinematic promises.

Either way, one thing is clear — SpaceX is being staged for something big.

Supporters see the move as a masterstroke. If Tesla isn’t your thing, SpaceX becomes the alternative. If you don’t like X, try orbital infrastructure. If you want exposure to AI but missed the OpenAI wave, Musk is building a new on-ramp — powered by rockets.

Critics, however, are less romantic. They see a familiar pattern: one strong, cash-generating company being used as a corporate piggy bank to bankroll another Musk ambition that’s expensive, unproven, and long on vision but short on profits.

Yet history complicates the criticism.

Musk’s “far-fetched” plans have a habit of working. Electric cars were once laughable. Reusable rockets were unrealistic. Private space dominance was unthinkable. Betting against him has not been a comfortable position.

Months ahead of what many expect to be a historic SpaceX IPO, the company is quietly transforming itself from a rocket firm into a diversified future-tech platform.

Think of it like staging a house before it goes on the market — except instead of fresh paint and furniture, the upgrades include:

The message to investors is simple: SpaceX isn’t just about getting to orbit anymore. It’s about owning the next layer of the digital and physical economy.

There’s another, more strategic motivation behind the move — and it has nothing to do with rockets.

Going public first matters.

OpenAI and Anthropic remain private, but their eventual Wall Street debuts feel inevitable. By folding xAI into SpaceX and heading toward an IPO sooner, Musk could seize a first-mover advantage in public AI investing — soaking up capital, retail enthusiasm, and media attention before rivals ever ring the bell.

It’s the same playbook OpenAI used with ChatGPT: release first, dominate the narrative, and force everyone else to play catch-up.

Musk, as always, is selling more than financials — he’s selling a story.

Traditional data centers? Power-hungry, land-constrained, and boring.
Data centers in space? Limitless, futuristic, and cinematic.

“Space is called ‘space’ for a reason,” Musk quipped in the deal announcement.

It’s classic Musk — half joke, half manifesto — framing xAI as a core component of a near-future world that feels closer to Interstellar than a spreadsheet model.

And that’s the point.

AI companies are already hard to value. Add rockets, satellites, and orbital infrastructure, and traditional metrics start to melt.

Profit-to-earnings ratios? Almost beside the point.

This is about belief — the same near-religious conviction Michael Novogratz once described in Bitcoin, now redirected toward Musk’s expanding empire. When SpaceX enters public markets, it won’t just be selling shares. It’ll be selling a vision of the future — one where AI thinks, rockets move, and data lives above the Earth.

To critics, the SpaceX-xAI merger is risky, indulgent, and possibly self-serving.
To believers, it’s the logical next step in Musk’s long game.

If Tesla doesn’t convince you, SpaceX might.
If AI feels overcrowded, Musk wants to take it to orbit.
And if you’re looking for the boldest possible IPO story of the decade — this might be it.

As Musk himself would say: Ad Astra.