Elon Musk says SpaceX could top $100 trillion within 10 years as Tesla merger talk builds

Elon Musk said SpaceX could be worth more than $100 trillion within 10 years, a forecast about 48 times its current market value, as analysts weigh whether he will merge the rocket-and-AI company with Tesla.

“Unless there is a major world war, SpaceX probably gets to >$100T in <10 years,” Musk wrote on X. SpaceX, which listed in June, was valued at about $2.1 trillion at Tuesday’s close. By that arithmetic, Musk’s roughly 39% stake would be worth about $39 trillion at his own forecast.

The number sits far above Wall Street’s most bullish voices. Ron Baron, whose firm holds about $25 billion of SpaceX stock, has said it could be worth $20 trillion to $50 trillion within a decade, according to Stocktwits, and Baron’s reaction was: “Elon thinks I’m way low.” Baron expects Starlink alone to reach $14 trillion to $15 trillion, with orbital data centers potentially a bigger business. For scale, $100 trillion is close to the size of the world’s annual economic output.

The merger question is the bigger story. Barclays analysts led by Dan Levy said in a report on Wednesday that a Tesla-SpaceX combination could be announced before Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting, which must be held by Dec. 6. To put a deal to a vote there, an announcement would have to come by late October or early November, the bank said, though it also considered a six-to-12-month window unrelated to the meeting.

Barclays judged an all-stock purchase of Tesla by SpaceX the likelier structure. At current valuations, Musk would own about 37% of the combined company and control about 56% of the votes, because SpaceX has dual-class shares. Musk has said he wants about 25% of Tesla to keep influence over its AI and robotics strategy, and Barclays sees greater control as a key motivation. The bank said a merger could integrate Tesla’s robotaxis and Optimus robots with SpaceX’s AI businesses, supported by the Terafab chip project, and remove separate board approvals for Terafab. “While we suspect there would be some financial synergies, the true value would be in vertical integration,” it said.

Neither company has confirmed merger talks. Musk said on Tesla’s July earnings call that any combination would need a proper process, and Wedbush’s Dan Ives puts the odds above 80% by 2027. Musk posted “Tesla x SpaceX” with the link to Tesla’s Roadster livestream, which retail traders read as a hint.

The event came and went without a merger announcement. Tesla unveiled the second-generation Roadster on Thursday night from a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas. The prototype raced up a curved ramp, clung to it upside down, vaulted off and spun in mid-air before landing, using 10 SpaceX thrusters fed by 600 liters of compressed air, engineering vice president Lars Moravy said. Tesla says it reaches 60 miles per hour in under a second, and Musk said production would start in 2028.

Investors were unmoved. Tesla closed Wednesday down about 2% at $367.16 and is down about 18% this year, the worst performer among the Magnificent Seven. SpaceX shares were down about 2% overnight ahead of the event.