Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX has completed a $60 billion acquisition of an artificial intelligence firm described as a rival to Anthropic and OpenAI, according to reports from Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Finance Australia.
The move marks one of the largest deals tied to Musk's business empire and pushes SpaceX, long known for rockets and satellites, squarely into the race to build advanced AI. The two leading names in that race, OpenAI (maker of ChatGPT) and Anthropic (maker of Claude), have drawn enormous investment and attention, and the reporting frames the acquired company as a direct competitor to both.
The sources here confirm the size of the deal — $60 billion — and the identity of the buyer, but do not provide further detail on the acquired company or the structure of the transaction.
Separately, SpaceX is reshaping its leadership. According to CNBC, the company has added Roelof Botha to its board. Botha worked alongside Musk at PayPal during the dot-com era before becoming a prominent venture capitalist. CNBC describes him as a longtime Musk ally, and his appointment signals deeper ties between SpaceX and Silicon Valley's investment world at a moment when the company is expanding well beyond spaceflight.
Taken together, the deal and the board addition suggest SpaceX is positioning itself as more than an aerospace business. A $60 billion AI purchase would give the company a foothold in the technology widely expected to reshape software, business and everyday life.
Why it matters: if a rocket company can spend $60 billion to acquire a top-tier AI rival, it shows just how high the stakes — and the price of entry — have become in the contest to dominate artificial intelligence.