Gibson Dunn and Sullivan & Cromwell have advised on the combination of SpaceX and xAI, two companies privately owned by Elon Musk.
The deal creates a company with a joint enterprise value of $1.25trn, and comes amid reports that Musk may take SpaceX public later this year, in what could become the largest IPO in history, estimated to raise up to $50bn.
Gibson Dunn advised Texas-headquartered SpaceX, with a team featuring some of the firm’s most senior lawyers, including global M&A co-chairs Robert Little and George Sampas in Dallas and New York, alongside capital markets co-chair Hillary Holmes, who co-heads the Houston office.
The team also included corporate, tax, competition, trade and finance partners across Palo Alto, Washington DC and Brussels, with newly promoted competition partner Alana Tinkler representing the London office.
S&C acted for xAI throughout the merger, with a team led by Palo Alto co-managing partner and tech M&A head Mike Ringler and M&A partner Peter Jones.
The firm’s team spanned Palo Alto, Washington DC and New York, with London involvement including antitrust co-head Juan Rodriguez.
Gibson Dunn also advised SpaceX on its September 2025 acquisition of satellite company EchoStar’s full portfolio, valued at $17bn, with Sampas and Little also on the deal team.
For its part, S&C has also worked with other Musk companies in the past, including representing Tesla before the Delaware Supreme Court, where it successfully reinstated the ten-year incentive compensation plan for the CEO last December.
In a statement regarding the merger, Musk said that the combination will allow faster growth for AI, as he plans to build data centres on the moon.
Musk said: ‘My estimate is that within two to three years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space.’
‘This cost-efficiency alone will enable innovative companies to forge ahead in training their AI models and processing data at unprecedented speeds and scales, accelerating breakthroughs in our understanding of physics and invention of technologies to benefit humanity,’ he added.
