Why Elon Musk Keeps Selling His Companies to Himself | SpaceX, XAI, and Tesla

On February 2nd, 2026, SpaceX bought xAI in a deal worth 1.25 trillion dollars, the biggest merger in history. The buyer and the seller had the same owner: Elon Musk. Less than a year earlier, xAI had bought X, the old Twitter, which was also Musk’s. And in October 2026, Tesla and SpaceX set up committees to discuss merging too. This is the story of why. It starts in 2016, when Tesla rescued SolarCity, the solar company run by Musk’s cousins, and Musk learned that when you sit on both sides of a deal, the deal gets done. Then we follow the money: Twitter’s lost value coming back “because the buyer said so”, xAI as a furnace that burns more than a billion dollars a month, Starlink as the power plant that pays for it, and the biggest IPO ever, which put the whole thing into ordinary people’s index funds. Then the record: “funding secured”, “too high imo”, bitcoin, Dogecoin and the “puffery” ruling, the late Twitter stake and a $1.5 million fine. And finally what Washington, the courts and the experts say, and the lesson for anyone who owns a piece of it. Chapters 0:00 SpaceX buys xAI for $1.25 trillion 0:38 The short answer: money 0:53 SolarCity: the first deal with himself 1:36 Twitter becomes X, X becomes xAI 2:17 How selling to yourself works 2:39 xAI: the furnace 3:47 Starlink: the power plant 4:08 The furnace meets the power plant 4:41 The biggest IPO ever 5:16 Who got what 5:44 Tesla’s shareholders said no 6:32 The links run deeper 7:14 Tesla + SpaceX: the next deal? 8:07 “Funding secured” 8:51 “Too high imo” and bitcoin 9:30 Dogecoin 10:12 “Aspirational and puffery” 10:44 The Twitter stake 11:31 The pattern 12:02 Washington: Warren and the SEC 12:36 The courts 13:07 The experts 13:45 The fans’ answer 14:15 The lesson Subscribe to Money Question for more stories about how business and money really work. Sources include company announcements and filings, SEC complaints and settlements, court rulings in Delaware, New York and San Francisco, Senator Warren’s letter to the SEC, the Bebchuk–Kastiel paper, and reporting from the time. Figures are approximate and in US dollars. No court has ruled that Elon Musk manipulated a market. Image credits: Elon Musk (Royal Society) by Debbie Rowe (CC BY-SA 3.0); Lyndon Rive by Steve Jurvetson (CC BY 2.0); X (Twitter) headquarters by 9yz (CC BY-SA 4.0); Nasdaq MarketSite by ajay_suresh (CC BY 2.0); NVIDIA H100 by Geekerwan (CC BY 3.0); Delaware Court of Chancery by Nolabob (CC BY-SA 4.0); Delaware Supreme Court building by w_lemay (CC BY-SA 2.0); Starlink user terminal by Horacio Cambeiro (CC BY 4.0); PitchBook and Tel Aviv University logos via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA). Other images public domain or CC0 via Wikimedia Commons; logos are trademarks of their owners, shown for commentary. Launch footage: U.S. Space Force (public domain). Stock footage from Pexels. Music and sound effects from Pixabay. #ElonMusk #SpaceX #Tesla #xAI #Business #Finance