TSLA Stock and SpaceX Merger Odds Rise After Historic IPO

Shares of Tesla Inc NASDAQ: TSLA they are trading around $410 this week, holding on to most of the gains they have made since their multi-month lows in late April. The broad bull case is well-documented, from fully self-driving and robotaxis to Optimus and the long-term desire for robots.

But in recent weeks, a new and potentially more important narrative has been quietly building in the background. That narrative is a growing consensus that Tesla and SpaceX are headed for a merger, and the latter's blockbuster IPO last week brought it into even sharper focus. SpaceX has officially gone public, and the timing has triggered new comments from Tesla's most vocal Wall Street bulls.

While Tesla investors are busy debating the robotaxi rollout, the conversation among key institutional voices has changed.

SpaceX IPO Changes Everything

Last Friday, SpaceX listed on the Nasdaq in what is considered the largest IPO in history. It was written four times; Demand from retail investors alone topped $100 billion, and firms like BlackRock were looking to invest at least $5 billion themselves.

But beyond the headlines, the IPO fundamentally changed the conversation around Tesla in a way it hasn't yet. Until last week, the prospect of a Tesla-SpaceX merger was an interesting theory built on speculation and Musk's track record.

However, there is now a publicly traded company with a real market value, a real share structure, and a real set of public shareholders. The integration thesis has gone from being theoretically interesting to a concrete situation where the market can begin to price it.

Why does Ives think he's coming

That brings us to comments from Wedbush's Dan Ives, one of Wall Street's most bullish voices on Tesla. Speaking to Bloomberg ahead of SpaceX's listing last week, Ives put the chances of a Tesla-SpaceX merger within the next year at 80% and positioned it as the logical next step in a broader strategy that Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of both companies, has been quietly implementing for years.

His thinking is worth checking out. Ives doesn't see the integration as a vanity project for business, but as a serious piece of play around AI and data. In his words, the combination is ultimately about integrating “a broader system, especially when it comes to AI data and everything that is under that area of ​​the Musk ecosystem that is associated with the idea of ​​control.”

He went further, arguing that SpaceX itself should be considered less of a traditional space company and more of a “data AI play” capable of hosting data centers in space within three or four years.

That restructuring is important because it directly challenges the way many investors think about both companies. If Ives is right, then everything from autonomous driving to robotics to Starlink will eventually be part of a single, integrated AI and data empire that is more important as one entity than two.

Musk Has Done This Before

What gives the theory of integration real credibility is not just Ives's comments; it is the pattern that comes before it. Earlier this year, Tesla invested in Musk's xAI, which had acquired X (formerly Twitter). SpaceX has since acquired xAI, which means Tesla shareholders already have an indirect link to SpaceX sitting on their balance sheet, without a formal merger ever taking place.

That is not a coincidence; it is a deliberate and procedural series. Each step brought Tesla and SpaceX closer together operationally and financially, quietly laying the foundations for something much bigger.

Add in Terafab's integrated semiconductor manufacturing facility currently under construction, which will produce chips for both companies, and the picture of the two organizations coming together on purpose becomes hard to ignore. Now that SpaceX has been publicly listed, the final structural barrier to a legal merger has been successfully cleared.

A Long Shot Worth Watching

All that said, the risks are real, and there are still plenty of reasons to be cautious. Both companies trade on extended multiples themselves, and merging them presents the risk of execution.

Prediction markets, which are increasingly recognized for their predictive accuracy, still put the chance of a merger before May 2027 at about 50%, well below Ives' call. There's also the not-so-small issue of legal scrutiny and shareholder battles that any of this measure would attract.

Still, the way forward feels much clearer than it did last month. Musk has a long history of delivering ideas that initially seemed impossible, and the SpaceX IPO may have just given him the final piece of the puzzle.

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