Elon Musk’s unveiling of a new “flying” Tesla at a SpaceX site this week has sparked excitement among observers about a standout merger between the two companies, with Kalshi punters putting the chances of such a combo at more than 50% for early next year.
Banking giant Barclays has gone so far as to say a merger could take place before Tesla’s annual general meeting, scheduled for December 6.
“The possibility of a Tesla/SpaceX merger has increasingly become the consensus expectation,” Barclays analysts wrote this week, according to Bloomberg.
“While it is possible that the timing of the announcement of a TSLA/SPCX merger could be later in October or perhaps even as late as early November, we believe such timing could increasingly call into question approval of the merger at the AGM,” they added.
The prospect of merging nearly $2 trillion SpaceX, which went public with much fanfare in June, and roughly $1.4 trillion Tesla, has market punters salivating.
To the question “When will Tesla and SpaceX merge?” ”, Kalshi has low odds for the rest of this year, but puts the chances of the combo happening by March 1 at around 50%. The odds rise to almost 60% for an April 1 deadline, with almost an 80% chance by the end of next year.
The idea of Musk integrating his electric automaker into SpaceX surfaced in the run-up to the summer’s IPO, with SpaceX purchasing about $100 million worth of Cybertrucks in 2025. Musk ended up merging SpaceX with his artificial intelligence company xAI.
But Tesla-SpaceX collaborations have continued, with SpaceX purchasing nearly $300 million worth of large-scale Tesla batteries, known as Megapacks, for its AI data centers in the second quarter of 2026.
More recently, observers viewed Musk’s decision to unveil Tesla’s new “flying” Roadster at a SpaceX test facility in Texas as a sign of a deeper partnership to come.
“You will see the results of what happens when you collaborate with the best car maker in the world and the best rocket maker in the world,” Musk said before the show.
“It’s the culmination of the incredible work of Tesla and SpaceX engineers working closely together to create something that you haven’t seen in any movie, that’s better than any James Bond car, better than – well, I don’t know, I’ve never seen anything like it,” he added.
Other group projects from Tesla and SpaceX include an effort to make semiconductors for Tesla’s vehicles and robots, as well as a chip dedicated to SpaceX’s AI satellites, Bloomberg noted.
Tesla overlaps “on many fronts with SpaceX,” as Musk said during a recent earnings call.
Barclays stressed that the challenges of a merger include the need to win shareholder votes.
“Approximately 11% of the total votes outstanding in Tesla’s 2025 AGM vote were ‘broker non-votes,’ which are effectively counted as ‘against’ votes, and we suspect that Tesla will attempt to increase shareholder participation in a possible combined SpaceX vote,” the analysts were quoted as saying by Bloomberg.
The merger would also require regulatory approval.
SpaceX and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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