Jessica Mendoza

But in space, neither of those issues are problems, at least theoretically.

The idea here is that solar will be what powers these data centers, which I suppose in space you have plenty of access to that.

This prospect is compelling enough that it's taken off across Silicon Valley.

And here's Musk talking about orbital data centers at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month.

SpaceX, XAI, and Musk didn't respond to requests for comment.

According to Wall Street Journal reporting, SpaceX has been studying orbital data centers behind the scenes for a while, and it had a technical breakthrough last fall.

But there's something else XAI needs, and it's something you won't find in space.

Money.

Musk, being ultra rich and the owner of several major tech companies, has a few different chess pieces to play with here.

One way to fund his AI startup is to just invest more money in it.

Just a few days ago, Tesla, his electric vehicle company, did exactly that, investing $2 billion in XAI.

And Musk has also sometimes combined businesses.

Like last year, when X, formerly known as Twitter, combined with XAI.

This time, having SpaceX acquire XAI would give the AI startup a major financial boost because SpaceX has a lot of money.

SpaceX is also planning to go public this year, as early as this summer, according to Wall Street Journal reporting.

And for XAI, being hitched to SpaceX ahead of an initial public offering gives it more financial muscle to compete with other AI companies, like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Both of those companies are also considering going public later in the year.

And through the SpaceX IPO, now, XAI might beat them to the punch.

What have XAI shareholders said about the acquisition?

But according to Wall Street Journal reporting, over on the SpaceX side...