Tesla · SpaceX · Analysis · 3 Nov 2026
A SpaceX–Tesla merger could hand Musk Tesla control without hitting a single Mars or robotaxi goal
No merger has been agreed, and no terms are public. But a Reuters analysis published on 3 Nov found that if SpaceX ever bought Tesla, Elon Musk could get the voting control at Tesla he has asked for without meeting any of the operational goals in his $1 trillion pay plan. Tesla's own filings back up the key mechanism.
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The editor holds Tesla and SpaceX shares. Supercharged Daily is independent and not affiliated with either company. Nothing here is financial advice.
The editor holds Tesla and SpaceX shares. Supercharged Daily is independent and not affiliated with either company. Nothing here is financial advice.
Musk's two big pay packages are built around headline goals: a million-person colony on Mars, a million robotaxis and a million humanoid robots. A Reuters analysis published on 3 Nov looked at both plans with six executive-compensation experts. It argues that a SpaceX–Tesla merger would make those goals far less important to what Musk has said he wants most: voting control of Tesla.
Where things stand
This is still talk, not a deal. Musk said on a SpaceX earnings call in October that both companies' boards had formed special committees to discuss a potential merger, Reuters reports. No terms have been announced. Musk, Tesla and SpaceX didn't respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
Two plans built in opposite ways
The key difference is when Musk gets the votes.
- SpaceX: Ahead of its IPO this summer, SpaceX's board granted Musk stock awards tied to market cap, a million people on Mars and space data centers. He can't keep the shares' economic value unless he hits the Mars and data-center goals, Reuters reports, but he got all their voting power immediately. That took him to 85% voting control of SpaceX without hitting any goal.
- Tesla: The plan shareholders approved on 6 Nov 2025 works the other way. It has 12 tranches. Each one needs a market-cap milestone, from $2 trillion up to $8.5 trillion, plus a matching number of 12 operational goals before Musk earns the stock and its votes. The goals include 1 million robotaxis in commercial operation and 1 million bots delivered. Reuters reports he hasn't hit any targets yet. Even if he hit all of them, he'd have only about 29% of Tesla's voting power, according to documents the board presented last year.
Musk has said control is the point. "My fundamental concern with regard to how much voting control I have in Tesla is: If I go ahead and build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted at some point in the future?" he said on Tesla's October 2025 earnings call, as quoted by Reuters.
How a merger could work as a shortcut
Barclays analysts estimated in a recent note, cited by Reuters, that if SpaceX acquired Tesla at the companies' current sizes, Musk would own about 37% of the combined company but hold about 56% of the votes. That's because many of his SpaceX shares carry 10 votes each, and Tesla has no such share class.
Tesla's pay plan spells out what happens in a takeover. The award terms filed with the SEC say that in a change in control, Tesla will decide which shares are earned "solely on the basis of market capitalization". Market cap is measured at the higher of the last closing price before the deal or the price Tesla shareholders receive. Any shares not earned that way "are automatically forfeited." In other words, the robotaxi and robot goals drop out.
That doesn't mean a big payout. Reuters puts Tesla's market cap at about $1.6 trillion (as of 3 Nov 2026). A deal would have to value Tesla at $2 trillion or more for Musk to earn even the first tranche, which is 35,311,992 shares under the plan. Reuters says that's about $20 billion in Tesla stock at that valuation, but worth less in practice. The plan only rewards growth in the stock after it was announced in September 2025. The six experts told Reuters a larger takeover premium would be unlikely. So the experts expect a merger would initially hand Musk "only a sliver" of the headline $1 trillion.
SpaceX's board could rewrite his plan
SpaceX's plan is less specific about a merger. Four of the experts told Reuters that the board could probably amend it however it wants. USC professor Kevin Murphy, who was an expert witness for Tesla in defending Musk's 2018 pay package, said he expects the plans to stay in place, with targets raised to fit a larger combined company. Reuters notes SpaceX did something similar when it acquired xAI earlier this year and took on Musk's xAI pay plan.
Research firm Equilar valued the shares in Musk's SpaceX plan at $719 billion at the top market-cap target, based on SpaceX's current share count, per Reuters.
What the critics say
"It's irrelevant," Charles Elson, founding director of the University of Delaware's Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, told Reuters. "This package is a distraction from the real story, which is complete control." Wharton accounting professor Matthew Bloomfield called the SpaceX plan "just a marketing document." Murphy took a different view of Musk himself: "He's an all-or-nothing kind of guy. He doesn't want a couple cookies. He wants the whole bag."
My take
For Tesla shareholders, the question isn't whether a Mars colony is realistic. It's whether they'd be swapping a plan where Musk earns more control by delivering robotaxis and Optimus for one where he'd get majority control at once, if the Barclays math holds. Nothing has been proposed yet. Treat this as a possibility, not a plan. If terms ever appear, control will be the number to watch, not the pay.
Sources: Reuters analysis, 3 Nov 2026, via Investing.com and The Economic Times; Tesla 2025 CEO Performance Award terms and Form 8-K with vote results and award agreement (SEC filings); Tesla 2025 proxy statement. Figures as of 3 Nov 2026.
— Alex R
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