The financial plumbing between Elon Musk’s companies just got a lot more visible. SpaceX’s latest earnings report reveals it spent $295 million on Tesla Megapack battery systems in the second quarter alone, bringing the year-to-date total to $329 million. That’s a staggering jump from the $34 million xAI spent on the same equipment in the first quarter before it was absorbed by SpaceX.
Where are these industrial-scale batteries going? Almost certainly to xAI’s data centers. Before the AI startup merged with SpaceX earlier this year, it had already shelled out $430 million for Megapacks destined for its computing facilities. The filing also disclosed that SpaceX acquired $131 million worth of Tesla Cybertrucks at MSRP by the end of 2025. It’s a circular flow of capital that raises eyebrows even for a Musk-led ecosystem accustomed to inter-company dealings.
The battery binge isn’t just corporate synergy — it’s a technical necessity. While xAI has leaned heavily on natural gas turbines, including unpermitted units near its Colossus project in Mississippi, GPUs don’t pull power in a smooth, predictable line. Training runs and inference spikes cause demand to surge and crash. Those peaks can trigger punishing fees from utilities or overwhelm on-site generators.
Megapacks solve that by discharging in under a second, smoothing out the jagged edges of AI power consumption. It’s the same logic that’s making batteries essential infrastructure for data center operators everywhere, not just Musk’s companies. The twist here is that SpaceX’s rocket money is now directly underwriting the power backbone for xAI’s AI ambitions — and Tesla’s energy division is the one cashing the checks.
