4 Tech Brands Owned By SpaceX

Elon Musk’s SpaceX operation is the globe’s most respected house firm. Impressive sufficient, however as of September 2026, it ranks because the seventh-largest world firm by market cap, inserting it amongst such illustrious names as Amazon, NVIDIA, Apple, and Microsoft within the globe’s prime 10 most respected firms. Of course, SpaceX’s main commerce is hurling huge rockets into house. The Falcon 9 rocket, as an illustration, is the corporate’s workhorse and has accomplished 687 profitable launches on the time of writing. SpaceX has also managed to successfully land the Falcon 9 hundreds of times. 

While it is rockets like this which can be largely chargeable for the corporate’s “meteoric rise” to its place among the many globe’s greatest firms, SpaceX has additionally acquired different tech manufacturers since its founding in 2002. SpaceX would not purchase loads of firms, however every buy is smart for the corporate and its ambitions. To most of the people a minimum of, maybe essentially the most recognizable of those is xAI, the Musk-founded AI firm behind the Grok chatbot. But this is not the corporate’s solely enterprise into AI; alongside this, it has bought an AI coding assistant, an built-in machine producer, and an IoT tech agency.

Let’s have a better take a look at 4 tech manufacturers owned by SpaceX.

xAI was based in 2023 by Elon Musk and a workforce of former Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and Google Research engineers. The firm grew to become identified for growing the Grok AI chatbot built-in into Musk’s social media platform X. The chatbot shortly made headlines, and it is truthful to say that many of those headlines have been controversial. However, they are saying that no publicity is unhealthy publicity, and for xAI, this definitely appears to be the case. By early 2026, xAI had grown to be one of the beneficial AI startups within the globe, reaching a worth of $230 billion earlier than its acquisition. 

The deal occurred on February 2, 2026, in what Reuters described as the largest merger and acquisition deal in historical past. The all-stock transaction valued SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion, making the merger one of the formidable tie-ups ever tried within the know-how sector. The deal formally unified Musk’s AI and house ambitions.

According to Elon Musk, a minimum of a part of the rationale behind the acquisition was to maneuver AI firms away from their reliance on huge Earth-based knowledge facilities to satellite tv for pc knowledge facilities. However, this was a two-way deal as a result of regardless of Grok AI’s success, it wasn’t a money-making mannequin. It was an AI commerce with out the type of cash-generating talents that supported rivals like Meta, Google, or Microsoft. Indeed, xAI reportedly burned by means of $13 billion in 2025. However, the US Government did sign a deal to use Grok. This looks as if greater than inside shuffling inside Elon Musk’s commerce empire; it lets two sectors the place Elon has sturdy ambitions maintain one another. 

Sticking to the AI theme, the following tech firm on the record is Anysphere, the corporate behind Cursor, an AI-native coding instrument and considered one of the best AI coding tools. This was one other record-breaking deal that has been touted as being the biggest startup acquisition on report, one thing that Mr. Musk appears to be good at. Anysphere was based in 2022 by Michael Truell and three MIT classmates, and shortly grew to become one of many fastest-growing AI software program firms. By February 2026, it had annualized earnings of $2 billion, and that greater than doubled to $4 billion by the point the acquisition went by means of in August 2026. Once once more, this was a stock-only deal, with the ultimate value of the takeover totaling a hefty $60 billion.

This is one other deal that advantages each firms. From Cursor’s perspective, the corporate had issues with computing bottlenecks; the deal gave them entry to SpaceX’s huge fleet of GPUs. Of course, with Musk’s xAI additionally below the SpaceX umbrella, the deal additionally allowed the 2 firms to collaborate. Indeed, this had occurred earlier than the deal was even finalized: Grok 4.5 and 4.6, which have been launched on July 8, 2026, and August 12, 2026, respectively, had each been skilled utilizing Cursor knowledge.

One of the businesses that Elon Musk is most well-known for is Starlink, the satellite-based web supplier. However, Starlink would not host the one world community of knowledge satellites. Founded in 2016 by Dr. Sara Spangelo and Benjamin Longmier, Swarm Technologies’ objective was to construct a worldwide, low-cost Internet of Things community utilizing tiny satellites referred to as SpaceBEEs. Each satellite tv for pc is about 4 inches sq. and about 1 inch deep. They’re designed to offer easy, low-bandwidth connectivity for good units, sensors, meters, trackers, and industrial monitoring gear. In different phrases, this method is meant to do for good units what Starlink did for web entry — present knowledge providers from any level on the planet.

Swarm Technologies additionally has the glory of being the primary firm that SpaceX ever bought outright. SpaceX acquired Swarm in 2021, and the deal included Swarm’s total constellation (120 on the time), floor stations, IP portfolio, and engineering workforce. As far because the technique behind the choice, the rationale was simple — Swarm’s low-bandwidth IoT community complemented Starlink’s high-speed broadband service, giving SpaceX a technique to supply connectivity throughout each ends of the spectrum. It additionally gave Starlink entry to the experience and mental property of an organization working in a really comparable area. 

However, right now Swarm not operates independently. Effectively, the corporate’s belongings and experience have been absorbed by SpaceX. One of the co-founders, Dr. Spangelo, went on to co-lead the corporate’s Direct to Cell program earlier than leaving to work within the vitality sector. 

SpaceX acquired Akoustis Technologies from chapter in 2025. The firm manufactures acoustic wave RF filters, tiny semiconductor parts that clear and isolate radio alerts by blocking interference and decreasing noise. RF filters are one thing of an unsung hero of the digital age, with fashionable smartphones utilizing over 100 to maintain the multitude of alerts that fashionable telephones can deal with from interfering with one another. Even car rear-window antennas rely on them to block interference from the defroster. Of course, one other space the place these parts are important is in satellite tv for pc communication techniques.

The latter utility makes the SpaceX acquisition of the producer make sense. By rescuing the corporate from chapter, SpaceX purchased the Akoustis manufacturing amenities, mental property, and engineering workforce, permitting it to maneuver most of its RF manufacturing in-house. Additionally, for Musk’s firm, the truth that Akoustis had expertise constructing RF filters for U.S. navy satellites was undoubtedly a giant carrot. 

Akoustis went out of business primarily attributable to a big judgment owed to a competitor after dropping a patent-infringement lawsuit. This noticed the corporate’s belongings put up for public sale below Section 363 of the US Bankruptcy Code. It was Tune Holdings that emerged because the profitable bidder; Tune Holdings is an entirely owned subsidiary of SpaceX. The $30.2 million deal might find yourself being a shrewd buy for SpaceX, one which brings RF manufacturing in-house and helps to cut back provide chain bottlenecks with these parts.