Elon Musk recently sat down with entrepreneur and investor Nikhil Kamath for the latest episode of the People by WTF podcast, recorded at Tesla’s headquarters in Texas. The wide-ranging, nearly two-hour conversation touched on everything from consciousness and parenting to the future of AI and global politics, but some of the most notable comments came when Musk discussed the long-term trajectory of his companies — and how they may ultimately intersect.
“I think there’s increasingly a convergence between SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI,” Musk said during the interview. “In that if the future is solar-powered AI satellites, which is pretty much what it needs to be in order to harness a non-trivial amount of the sun, you have to move to AI-powered satellites in space.”
The idea of Musk’s companies blending into one another isn’t new. Tesla engineers have long supported projects at SpaceX, and the companies frequently exchange talent, manufacturing processes, and hardware expertise. Tesla recently advanced that relationship even further, putting a potential investment in Musk’s AI startup xAI to a shareholder vote at its annual meeting last month — a move that signals deeper alignment between Tesla’s work on autonomous systems and xAI’s frontier-model ambitions. Meanwhile, SpaceX has already made a multibillion-dollar investment in the AI newcomer.
Earlier this year, xAI also merged with X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. And Walter Isaacson, who authored Musk’s biography, has said that some form of merger between Tesla and xAI is likely in the long run.
Musk also weighed in on investing, saying he doesn’t maintain a traditional portfolio but sees Google and Nvidia as obvious long-term value drivers in the AI era. He predicted that companies working in AI, robotics, and spaceflight are positioned to command “almost all of the value” going forward.
On the U.S. debt crisis, Musk argued that large-scale AI and robotics deployment is “the only thing” capable of solving it, predicting that in about three years, growth in goods and services will outpace money supply growth.
The interview also included characteristic moments of levity, with Musk joking about his experiences with political blowback: “I’ve generally found that when I get involved in politics, it ends up badly… Politics is a blood sport… Best to avoid it where possible.”
The full conversation — covering AI regulation, college, simulation theory, family, philanthropy, and more — may be one of Musk’s most free-flowing and introspective long-form appearances this year. Watch the complete interview in the video below:
