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All the ways Elon Musk’s companies are already intertwined, from a Tesla ‘collab’ with SpaceX to Grok in vehicles

by with No Comment Xpandfy

Elon Musk has for years blurred the lines between the companies he leads.

The intermingling of Elon Inc. businesses — a number which shrank from six entities to five when xAI acquired X last year, and from five to four when SpaceX acquired xAI on Monday — is something of signature for the CEO.

Over the past three years, his companies have stepped up their internal dealings, investing billions in one another, agreeing to buy up each other’s products, and exchanging software and materials.

The result is a tightly knit corporate ecosystem centered on Musk, where work — and even employees — can flow between the various entities in the name of vertical integration.

Here are some of the recent sharing agreements, purchases, and investments between Musk’s companies.

Musk’s employees often work between companies


Elon Musk took over Twitter about a year ago.

Shortly after acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk brought Tesla engineers into the offices to work on its code base.

Photo by -/Twitter account of Elon Musk/AFP via Getty Images



Musk has repeatedly drawn on employees from one company to support others in his portfolio.

In 2022, about a month after Musk bought Twitter — now known as X — he sent roughly 50 Tesla employees to the social-media company’s headquarters to help overhaul its code-review systems, according to court filings.

Musk later argued in court that the Tesla employees had “volunteered” to do the work and that their temporary reassignment should not concern Tesla’s board.

Executives share overlapping functions on several of Musk’s companies, too, according to insider org charts obtained by Business Insider.

For example, Charlie Kuehmann, the vice president of materials and engineering at Tesla, also holds the same title at SpaceX.

SpaceX contributes to Roadster, Tesla provides SpaceX with energy-storage systems


A Falcon Heavy rocket from SpaceX takes off from a launch pad in Florida during a clear day.

SpaceX is lending rocket-boosting tech to Tesla’s upcoming hyper-powered sports car, Musk said.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images



SpaceX is a major customer of Tesla’s energy business, purchasing batteries for robotics power and Megapack energy-storage systems.

It also reportedly invested $2 billion into xAI as a part of a previous funding round.

Musk has also said that Tesla’s long-awaited next-generation Roadster will be a “Tesla/SpaceX collab” and feature SpaceX-built cold-gas thrusters. The hyper-powered sports car’s launch event is penciled in for April 1.

“It’s gonna be really cool, and it’s gonna have some rocket technology in it,” Musk also said during a 2024 sit-down with Don Lemon.

SpaceX and Boring Company buy Tesla cars


Boring Company Tesla entering tunnel

A Tesla entering the Hawthorne Tunnel, made by Elon Musk’s Boring Co.

Robyn Beck/Pool via REUTERS



Aside from full-blown investments or acquisitions, the most publicly visible example of Musk’s companies coordinating might be Tesla’s vehicle sales to his tunnel-building start-up.

The Boring Company, which operates tunnels in Las Vegas and Texas, uses fleets of Tesla vehicles to transport passengers through its underground systems. The tunnel builder has also constructed tunnels around Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas.

It isn’t alone. SpaceX also purchased an unspecified number of Musk’s Cybertrucks.

Tesla and xAI’s ‘framework agreement’ follows Grok integration into cars, Optimus demo bots.


A person in light blue jeans sits in the front passenger seat inside a self-driving Tesla.

Tesla wants to build out its AI software, including its self-driving ambitions. CEO Elon Musk said a $2 billion investment in his software company would help.

Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images



Tesla’s earnings on Wednesday disclosed that it had agree to invest $2 billion in xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, with a related “framework agreement” to explore additional collaboration opportunities.

Tesla has already integrated xAI’s Grok into its vehicles, allowing drivers to chat with the AI and use it to add and edit navigation destinations.

Videos have shown early versions of Tesla’s in-development Optimus robot using xAI’s Grok AI chatbot for its voice.

xAI has also reportedly told investors that it’s working on AI that could power Tesla’s forthcoming Optimus humanoid robots.

Tesla executives said the $2 billion investment supports the automaker’s push into self-driving technology. For example, the earnings deck explained that xAI-developed software will analyze vehicle interiors and assist with route planning, including adding high-occupancy-vehicle lanes when the car is full.

For xAI, the investment adds capital to the cash-hungry buildout of data centers and their energy needs.

The deal marked one of the clearest examples of capital flowing from Musk’s public company into a privately held firm he controls.

It’s all par for the course for ‘Elon Inc.’

The growing web of internal deals has fueled discussion among investors and analysts about whether Musk’s companies are evolving into something closer to a single, vertically integrated enterprise.

And it’s not clear if it’ll stop at SpaceX combining with xAI.

There’s also been recent reports that Tesla could combine with SpaceX.

“In Tesla’s case, an important factor to consider is that investors are buying into Elon Musk’s vision for the future as much as they are buying into an automaker or clean energy company,” Lou Whiteman, a contributing analyst at The Motley Fool, told Business Insider.

“Since this group of companies, public and private, combine to represent Elon Musk’s full vision of the future, I’d bet that many investors are happy to see Tesla involved in all aspects of ‘Elon Inc.'”




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Executive ghostwriter gives LinkedIn makeovers to execs. Here are 4 ways to brag more effectively on your profile.

by with No Comment Xpandfy

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jillian Richardson, a 31-year-old ghostwriter for executives. She’s based in Brooklyn. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I’m a ghostwriter focused on helping executives and founders grow their presence on LinkedIn.

I offer LinkedIn profile polishes for executives, as well as people looking for a new job or trying out self-employment. After helping a number of people edit their profiles, one of my takeaways is that people need to brag more. They are not hyping themselves up nearly enough.

LinkedIn is the place where it’s socially acceptable to brag. The point is to discuss your career and where you’re going next in life. LinkedIn is also a sea of people, and if you don’t share what makes you unique, you won’t stand out. People also assume you just need to share something about yourself once, and that’s it, but things get lost on social media, so you can share the same thing a few times.

I recently talked to a colleague, and we both have the same experience with ghostwriting clients. When they start posting more on LinkedIn, they’ll receive a text from a friend calling them a try-hard or poking fun at them.

The idea that social media is not entirely real and only shows everyone’s best side is what’s called “discernment.” You’re not going to be sharing every horrible moment of your life on social media. If you did, you probably wouldn’t be in a super stable place. There are only parts of yourself that you want to share on the internet, and that’s up to you. I wouldn’t say that’s inauthentic. That’s just having boundaries.

There are a lot of places in the profile where the bragging — or lack of it — can show up. These are my suggestions to showcase your accomplishments more effectively:

The ‘Headline’

The headline is one of the places people share accomplishments. I always recommend that when people write their headline, they think about using the language they would if they were speaking to an individual customer.

You want to use the headline to let the reader know how you can support them. Just write it as a single sentence. Don’t use those divider lines that chop up everything because that’s when people get carried away, and then they have 10 different accomplishments that don’t connect to the person reading it.

The ‘About’ section

I can’t tell you the number of founders I’ve talked to who literally don’t have anything in their ‘About’ section. If I looked at their LinkedIn, I would assume their company doesn’t even exist.

In the ‘About’ section, you should share statistics of how you help your customers. This is the place to really brag about how you help people succeed; why people should trust you; and what makes you different from other people in your industry. You should also use client case studies and share testimonials.

The ‘Featured’ section

I always recommend that people pin a newsletter, a landing page, or a website that brings people outside LinkedIn, where you can collect their email so you can be in contact with them in another place, and continue to have them get familiar with you.

For example, you could feature a social media moment that you had. Recently, I was featured in Forbes, so I have that there to look like I’m a trustworthy human being. Or, I can pin a LinkedIn post that performed really well to demonstrate my industry expertise.

The ‘Recommendations’ section

The Recommendations section is located toward the bottom of the profile, and many people don’t pay attention to it. However, people really look at this section when considering hiring someone. Many people already have testimonials on their website, so I usually suggest asking for recommendations from those people by saying something like, “Hey, you said this exact thing to me. Would you be willing to copy and paste this on LinkedIn?”

Or, if somebody just said something nice to you on a call that they maybe didn’t write down, just email them being like, “Hey, I’m looking for recommendations on my LinkedIn. I remember you so generously said this thing. Would you be willing to copy and paste this as a LinkedIn recommendation?”

Most people will say yes, including a former boss or colleague. As long as you have a good relationship with them, why not reach out and ask? Everybody wants to see their team members succeed, hopefully.




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