Elon Musk’s two companies merge because Wall Street loves simplicity

SpaceX is no longer SpaceX and xAI is no longer xAI. Instead, the company has decided to merge both names, and from now on it will be called SpaceXAI. That new name makes one thing very clear: the company is selling itself to Wall Street as an AI company that also launches rockets, not the other way around. A fusion that was sung. SpaceX bought xAI —and with it, both the Grok AI model and the social network X— in early February. He did so in a 100% stock move that valued SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion. The name change is above all a marketing “punchline” about that de facto merger. The strategy has as one of its probable arguments a simplification that will undoubtedly be liked on Wall Street: Musk has created many companies that seemed to operate independently, so consolidating them gives that vision of a unified purpose and objective. This is not just about image. After the merger that occurred in February there was a clear reason: the dream of orbital data centers. Musk has been talking for some time about how ground infrastructure can’t meet AI’s global electrical demand, and SpaceX has already asked the FCC for permission to deploy up to a million satellites that work like computing nodes in low orbit. Therefore, having SpaceX and xAI completely merged also by their name simplifies this entire ecosystem. Going public helps. The decision comes shortly after SpaceX debuted on the stock market in June with the largest IPO in history. It raised $75 billion and earned a valuation of $1.77 trillion. The milkmaid’s tale? Before going public, SpaceX spoke of the “Total Addressable Market” (TAM), an estimate of the total size of the business they could access if they captured 100% of the demand and the figure is colossal: 28.5 billion dollarsof which 26.5 billion would correspond to AI, 1.6 billion in connectivity (Starlink) and only 370,000 to the space segment. Part of the animation of the “fusion” between both names showed this aspect. Grok and Cursor as pieces of the future. Grok continues and will continue to operate under the SpaceXAI umbrella, and of course the infrastructure agreements already signed are also maintained. The most important, the one that Anthropic recently signed and for which will pay 1,250 million dollars monthly to SpaceXAI for access to computing in the Colossus data centers. Google will pay 920 million monthly for the same. The other piece of the future is Cursor, the AI ​​agent for programming which is key so that the company can infiltrate companies. And Tesla, what? Since the merger with SpaceX was closed, there has been speculation on Wall Street with a plausible future: that Tesla will be the next to disappear as an independent company. SpaceX’s own president, Gwynne Shotwell, recognized the day of the IPO that there is a clear “convergence” between both companies, although he avoided talking about dates. Both are already collaborating on projects such as the ambitious Terafab, and Tesla maintains an investment of $2 billion in SpaceX which, after the merger with xAI, has already generated a capital gain on paper of around 64% due to the rise in the value of SpaceX shares. A very strong option. This “merger” with Tesla seems certainly likely. Wedbush consulting analyst Dan Ives esteem that there is an 80% probability that the movement will occur, and the Kalshi betting platform handles in these moments a 51% chance of that move arriving before May 2027. Some of the groundwork is already done in practice: both companies share engineers and both face bottlenecks in the form of power supply and cooling for their AI systems. In Xataka | “The idea of ​​making a cell phone makes me want to die,” said Musk. Two years later, it is very deep with its prototype of a mobile phone with AI

merge sets to save costs

Telecinco closed January 2026 with an 8.5% screen share, his worst start to the year in its entire history, even below the aggregate of the regional chains (8.7%). The fall especially affects its information services, which have recorded historic lows and have forced the group to take emergency measures. Starting next February 9, Telecinco News and Noticias Cuatro will share the set and editorial teama merger that the company presents as optimization of resources but that shows the depth of a crisis that has been dragging on for more than a year. The figures. The numbers are overwhelming: Informativos Telecinco averaged 8.1% of share with 883,000 spectators. It is the tenth consecutive month without reaching one million viewers on average, a threshold that the network had maintained for decades. Noticias Cuatro occupied the last position among the general news programs with 6.7% of share half. The paradox is that while Telecinco’s sister channel is experiencing its best moment since its relaunch two years ago, exceeding the 5.8% monthly average, its news programs fail to connect with the audience. The distance with laSexta Noticias has narrowed to the point of almost disappearing: barely two tenths separate both spaces, a gap that a year ago seemed unbridgeable and that threatens a surprise which would further sink the group’s position in the Spanish news landscape. It’s the others’ fault. Antena 3 closed January with a 12.9% shareadding its eighteenth consecutive month in the first position of the national ranking. Their news programs average 19.5% share and they chain 73 months leading the Spanish information landscape. RTVE’s 1 consolidated second place with 12.2% monthly quota, its best start to the year since 2012. Public television doubles the records of Informativos Telecinco in prime time: Newscasts perform especially well in the mornings (16.9%) and afternoons (11.3%), where they have their best data in more than a decade. Crisis since 2025. Telecinco closed 2025 with a 9.5% annual audience share, the worst record in its entire history. The chain chained consecutive monthly lows: July (9.2%), August (8%), September (9.2%), October (9.4%), November (9%), December (8.4%) and now January (8.5%). A downward trajectory that has moved it away from 9% and has placed it below thresholds that seemed untouchable. Badly informative. This space has been one of the main problems in this process. Despite the investment made in 2024 with the renovation of the set and the signing of Carlos Franganillo, the current data is lower than what Pedro Piqueras recorded before his retirement. The space has accumulated ten months without exceeding one million viewers on average, an unprecedented drought that reflects the disconnection with an audience that for years trusted the brand. The solution. Hence this new measure: from Monday, February 9, Informativos Telecinco and Noticias Cuatro will share facilities and editorial teams. Francisco Moreno, Director of News at Mediaset España, presented the decision as an operational reorganization without labor consequences. The group promises to maintain the visual identity of each news brand: Noticias Cuatro will retain its characteristic lighting, its corporate colors and its on-screen style. Programming adjustments. The reorganization is not limited to the information area. The first layoffs of the year at Mediaset have been produced in Unicorn Contentthe production company linked to Ana Rosa Quintana, as a direct consequence of the rearrangement of the schedule for 2026. The reduction in broadcast hours of ‘Vamos a ver’ has forced part of the technical and production team to be dispensed with. The move is part of a broader strategy: ‘First Dates’ has returned to Telecinco from Monday to Wednesday, ‘El Precio Justo’ returns at noon and Iker Jiménez’s ‘Horizonte’ has temporarily become a daily program on Cuatro. The economic impact. The audience crisis has a direct translation into advertising revenue. Data for the first quarter of 2025 reflects a significant decrease: Mediaset’s income in Spain fell from 180 to 167 million euros. This contraction contrasts with the 8% growth recorded in the same period of 2023. The consulting firm Infoadex estimates that during the first half of the year the group’s turnover fell by 9.4%, standing at 315.9 million euros. The failure of the big bet. A little over two years ago, Mediaset made a big bet on reinvent your information offer. Carlos Franganillo debuted at the head of Informativos Telecinco, replacing Pedro Piqueras after 18 years at the head of the space. The signing of the then star presenter of La 1’s Telediario was an unequivocal message: Mediaset was looking for prestige, credibility and a qualitative leap in its informative proposal. The operation was accompanied by a unprecedented technological investment in the chain: The new set incorporated 210 square meters of screens, augmented reality systems, three hanging vertical screens designed for mobile consumption, a spidercam and artificial intelligence tools integrated into production. Early data appeared to support the strategy. Franganillo’s debut attracted 1,559,000 viewers and reached an 11.5% share, figures higher than the average that the space had been recording. However, the audience has not connected with the proposal, and the signing of Franganillo has not managed to reverse the downward trend of the network. In Xataka | The end of ‘Caiga Quia Caiga’ is more than a blow to the audience: it illustrates that Telecinco can only trust reality shows

Europe has done the only thing it could do to compete with SpaceX and China in space: merge its largest companies

Europe has grown tired of watching from the sidelines how SpaceX and, increasingly, Chinaredefine the rules of the game in space. The continent’s response was inevitable: a historic fusion. The three European aerospace giants, Airbus, Leonardo and Thales, have signed a memorandum of understanding to combine its spatial divisions into a single, colossal enterprise. Merge or die. This is not news that we break every day. It is the most ambitious move in the European aerospace industry since the creation of the MBDA missile consortium in 2001. And at the same time, it is not an offensive move, but a strategic survival maneuver. Given the agility of reusable rockets and Elon Musk’s megaconstellations, the fragmentation of Europe had become an unsustainable burden. Now, the plan is to create a European champion with the critical mass necessary to at least be able to compete. A colossus about to be born. The agreement, which It’s been brewing for months. under the code name “Project Bromo”, it will give rise to a new company that, if approved by regulators, could be operational in 2027. The figures used give an idea of ​​the scale of the operation: a combined annual turnover of 6.5 billion euros, and nearly 25,000 employees spread throughout Europe. Airbus will have the majority stake with 35%, while the Italian Leonardo and the French Thales will share the rest almost equally, with 32.5% each. Despite the majority of Airbus, the government of the new colossus will be “balanced” and under joint control, as reported by the companies. What does each one contribute? Each partner will contribute his crown jewels in the space sector. Airbus will contribute with its Space Systems and Digital Space businesses. Leonardo will bring its Space Division to the table, including its valuable stakes in Telespazio and Thales Alenia Space. Thales will mainly contribute its shares in those same joint ventures (Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio) and Thales SESO. Why it was inevitable. The harsh reality is that Europe was falling behind, and very quickly. SpaceX’s disruption has been brutal, especially on two fronts: launch and satellites. While Europe continues recovering lost ground With the development of its Ariane rockets, Elon Musk’s company has not only radically lowered the cost of putting something into orbit, but has flooded the sky with its Starlink constellation and its military version, Starshield. Beating SpaceX is no longer possible. On October 19, the company surpassed a staggering number of 10,000 Starlink satellites launched in just over 300 launches of the Falcon 9 rocket. This network of small satellites has cannibalized the traditional market for large and expensive geostationary satellites, the pillar on which the business of European companies was based. The only thing Europe can do, and what this new giant is destined to do, is recover its technological sovereignty in space and, with it, its security. Image | Airbus In Xataka | “We are the company that has developed an orbital rocket the fastest”: PLD Space, one step away from making history from Spain

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