Is Elon Musk Really Merging Tesla and SpaceX? Inside the 90% Rumor Wall Street Can't Agree On

Is Elon Musk Actually Planning to Merge Tesla and SpaceX?

For years, a Tesla-SpaceX merger was the kind of idea that surfaced in a stray tweet and died in the replies. That changed after Tesla's Q2 2026 earnings call, when Elon Musk himself kept the door open rather than shutting it — and at least one prominent Wall Street analyst now says he thinks the combination is more likely than not to actually happen.

This is still, officially, a rumor. Neither Tesla nor SpaceX has announced a deal, filed paperwork, or confirmed a timeline. But it's a rumor with an unusual amount of fuel behind it, so it's worth walking through exactly what's been said, by whom, and how much weight it can actually bear.

What Musk Actually Said

On the call, Musk didn't pitch a merger — but he also didn't wave it away, which is itself notable given how often he's dismissed similar speculation in the past. According to Reuters' reporting on the call (via Investing.com), Musk pointed to "growing overlap" between the two companies as a reason the idea keeps coming up, and noted that SpaceX and Tesla already collaborate closely on manufacturing and chip production through a joint effort sometimes referred to as "Terafab." Tesla also supplies battery technology and manufacturing know-how for some SpaceX hardware.

Crucially, Musk reportedly said that any actual combination would have to go through "the appropriate process" — legal, regulatory, board-level — and that an earnings call isn't the venue to negotiate something like that. That's a far cry from a confirmation. It's closer to "ask my lawyers, not me, on a live investor call." Still, in the Musk-watching world, that qualifies as meaningfully more than he's said before.

The Analyst Betting 90% on It

The number getting passed around this week comes from Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management, a longtime Tesla-watcher. According to Parameter and multiple other outlets covering his remarks, Munster raised his estimated odds of a Tesla-SpaceX merger from 80% to 90% specifically because of what Musk said on the call.

"I would put the odds that these two will combine at 90% today," Munster said, according to reports circulating on social media and picked up by outlets including Bitget and Stocktwits. "If you were going to ask me yesterday I would have said it's 80%."

It's worth being precise about what that number represents: it's one analyst's subjective probability estimate, not a leaked term sheet or a regulatory filing. Munster has reportedly floated a timeline of "the next two years" in some of his commentary, though other write-ups paraphrase it more loosely as "the next few years" — which is itself a sign of how much the reporting varies outlet to outlet on specifics.

What the Prediction Markets Think

If Munster sounds bullish, the betting markets are considerably more skeptical — which is a useful gut check on how far ahead of the fundamentals the hype may be running. Reporting citing Kalshi prediction-market pricing has put the odds of a completed merger before specific 2027 deadlines much lower than Munster's figure — with different reports citing numbers in roughly the 40–50% range depending on the exact deadline used (one cites before May 1, 2027, another before March 2027). Those numbers aren't directly comparable to each other or to Munster's estimate since they're tied to different cutoff dates, but the gap between "one analyst says 90%" and "the market says closer to a coin flip" tells you this is still genuinely unresolved, not a done deal with a press release pending.

Why It's Not a Simple "Yes"

Even people who think a merger is plausible point to real structural hurdles:

Regulatory scrutiny. Combining a publicly traded automaker with SpaceX — which holds sensitive U.S. government and defense contracts — would likely draw serious antitrust and national-security review.
Governance and control. Musk's voting power at Tesla is already a frequent flashpoint with shareholders; folding in a company he controls more directly could complicate that further.
China exposure. Tesla's manufacturing and sales footprint in China sits awkwardly next to SpaceX's U.S. government and military relationships, a tension analysts have flagged as a genuine complicating factor rather than a footnote.
SpaceX isn't public. SpaceX is privately held, so any "merger" would likely look more like an acquisition or a complex stock-swap structure than a conventional merger of equals — and valuing a private company with SpaceX's mix of launch, Starlink, and future Starship revenue is its own unresolved question.

Our Take

Treat this as what it is: a real, actively-discussed scenario that one well-known analyst has put at 90% and that prediction markets are pricing closer to a toss-up, sitting on top of comments from Musk that were deliberately non-committal. That's a meaningfully different thing from "Tesla is merging with SpaceX," a framing that's already circulating in lower-quality aggregator posts and is not something either company has confirmed.

If a formal process does start, expect it to surface first through SEC filings or an official statement rather than another offhand comment on an earnings call. Until then, this stays filed under rumor — a notable one, but a rumor all the same. We'll follow up if either company moves beyond speculation.