SpaceX has bought $329M of Tesla batteries this year — is a merger coming before year-end?

SpaceX purchased $295 million of Tesla Megapack batteries in the second quarter, taking its total purchases for the first half of the year to $329 million.

The transactions add to a picture of steadily thickening financial and operational links between the two companies. Tesla's $2 billion investment in xAI had already been converted into SpaceX equity.

Ark Invest assessed that the China issue standing between the two companies appears manageable rather than an "insurmountable hurdle", and said a deal could plausibly be announced before the end of 2026.

Musk's favourable comments about China over the same period have fed the discussion further. A merger, if it happened, would gather automotive, space and artificial-intelligence assets under a single roof.

MHA Analysis

The Megapack purchases alone are a routine supply relationship; read alongside the conversion of the xAI investment into SpaceX equity, the boundary between the two companies has already blurred at the accounting level. A merger would gather automotive, space and AI assets onto one balance sheet, changing both risk distribution and governance transparency for investors. The real uncertainty is regulatory rather than technical: how a concentration on that scale clears competition authorities.