Musk joins his rocket and AI businesses into a single company before an expected IPO this year

Elon Musk is joining his space exploration and artificial intelligence ventures into a single company before a massive planned initial public offering for the business later this year.

His rocket venture, SpaceX, announced on Monday that it had bought xAI in an effort to help the world’s richest man dominate the rocket and artificial intelligence businesses. The deal will combine several of his offerings, including his AI chatbot Grok, his satellite communications company Starlink, and his social media company X.

Musk has talked repeatedly about the need to speed development of technology that will allow data centers to operate in space, a goal that may become easier in the combined company.