While Musk Fiddles With xAI on Earth, His Head Is on Mars

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Does Elon Musk consider all of his companies to be one giant company? That’s something that comes up in today’s Elon, Inc. episode as host David Papadopoulos, Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull and Bloomberg Businessweek senior writer Max Chafkin consider a recent report on Tesla potentially giving up future revenue in exchange for access to Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI access. That brings up corporate governance issues. And then, Hull speaks to New York Times reporter Kirsten Grind about a story she wrote on Musk’s plans regarding Mars.

The idea that Tesla and xAI would somehow pool resources is not surprising, given how many staff have gone back and forth across Musk companies—but it does raise legal issues. There are already shareholder lawsuits regarding the reported partnership, but it’s not clear legal action would move shareholders, who have largely supported Musk’s actions, including ones that bring together his diverse business interests.
The potential controversy around Tesla evokes memories of Tesla’s SolarCity acquisition, which was also the occasion for a big shareholder lawsuit. Ultimately Musk won, and his family members who co-founded the solar company were able to exit the startup for a cool $2.6 billion.
And now… Mars! Musk has a plan (very loosely defined) to get a million people there in 20 years. This is seen by experts as wildly unlikely, to say the least. But the right-wing billionaire has insisted it’s critical for humans to start moving to a second planet.
The science of it all, however, is extremely untested. How humans will eat, procreate and do other basic functions are unknown. But the money is real: Musk has been “quietly” designing city plans under a contract with NASA. There has been talk of “terraforming” Mars, too. SpaceX engineers have a much clearer idea of how the domes will be built, but they are still working on how humans will be able to, you know, stay alive.

About the show: Each week, listen in as host David Papadopoulos (and sometimes Max Chafkin) convenes a panel of Bloomberg journalists tracking Elon Musk’s companies and the surprising ways they intersect, breaking down his latest moves and what they could mean for us all.