Tesla and SpaceX have each formed a special committee of independent directors to study a possible merger. Elon Musk, CEO of both companies, disclosed it on SpaceX's third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, answering a question from Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu. He said the committees were set up "at the request of shareholders" and that they "have not reached agreement on the terms of any transaction."
What Musk said
"Because I'm a conflicted party, I can't actually be in the discussions of the special committees," Musk said, according to the call transcript published by Benzinga. "So it's an odd kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can't be in the conversation."
He pushed back on the idea that a deal is a done thing: "Some people out there assume that a SpaceX and Tesla merger is a certainty, and I think that would be overstating it. Do I think it would be a good idea? Yes. But at the end of the day the shareholders have to be supportive of this."
Musk said the case for combining rests on shared work in "superintelligence software, chip design, the Terafab, obviously robotics," and getting mass to orbit for the satellite network. "It's really up to the special committees of both companies. They've got to come up with something, and then that's got to be put to the shareholders as a vote."
The Tesla vote is the hard part
On the Tesla side, Musk said a deal would need "a 50% vote of all shares, not just those who vote," which he called "quite a high hurdle." TechCrunch noted that Musk holds more than 50% of SpaceX's voting power after its June IPO, so approval there would be far easier.
Musk did not name the committee members. Tesla's October 19 proxy lists seven independent directors: chair Robyn Denholm, Ira Ehrenpreis, JB Straubel, Joe Gebbia, Jack Hartung, James Murdoch and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson, TechCrunch reported. Ehrenpreis also sits on SpaceX's board as an independent director.
How the market reacted
SpaceX (SPCX) traded 8% higher after hours and Tesla (TSLA) was up 2% in after-hours trading, according to a report on Yahoo Finance. No merger item is on the agenda for Tesla's annual meeting on Thursday, Dec. 3 (see our proxy story). Barclays had told clients a deal could be announced around that meeting or in the next six to 12 months (our earlier report). Deepwater's Gene Munster put the odds of a deal in the next two years at 95% in a post on X, Axios reported.
Tesla reports its own third-quarter results after the close on Wednesday, Oct. 21, where analysts are likely to ask about the committee. For SpaceX's quarter itself, see our results story.