Key Points
Tesla has big opportunities with robotaxis and robots.
SpaceX's growth will be driven by its AI ventures and Starlink.
There appears to be a high likelihood that the two stocks will merge before 2030.
If you want to invest in the future, splitting your investment between Elon Musk's two companies, Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), could be a solid bet. With just under $10,000 split between the two stocks, investors could buy 14 shares of Tesla and 34 shares of SpaceX.
Tesla is the older of Musk's two companies, and it has established electric vehicle (EV), solar, and energy storage businesses. However, what gets investors most excited is what the company has in store for the future, and Tesla recently impressed investors with its new Roadster, which can apparently fly and flip.
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Tesla's biggest opportunities, though, are with robotaxis and robots. Tesla has created a differentiated self-driving technology that uses a camera-only neural network that doesn't rely on expensive lidar. This, along with its manufacturing footprint, gives it a big cost advantage as it looks to roll out its robotaxi venture across the U.S. If its technology gets the green light, it could dominate this market given what should be superior economics.
Meanwhile, Musk has said he believes that Tesla's Optimus robots will eventually become its biggest revenue contributor. While making the robots has hit some snags, it has started producing them, and things should become easier over time.
SpaceX is a bet on AI and space
Musk's newer company is SpaceX. The company currently operates in three segments: space (its rocket launch business), connectivity (its Starlink satellite internet operations), and artificial intelligence (which includes its AI infrastructure, Grok, and AI coding businesses). Starlink is its largest and most profitable business and is growing quickly. Meanwhile, it looks like it may be trying to enter the U.S. mobile market with Starlink as well.
AI is SpaceX's fastest-growing business, and it should soon become its largest. The company is aggressively building out new AI infrastructure, and it has been getting great returns on its investments, with a payback period of about a year. It has multiple large deals in place, with Anthropic set to be an anchor customer with $84.5 billion in commitments through 2029. Its AI coding platform Cursor, which it acquired earlier this year, is also projected to see robust growth in the coming years.
SpaceX's space business and its Starship rocket, meanwhile, are the gateway to some of its more ambitious future endeavors. This includes things like orbital data centers, Earth-to-Earth cargo transport, and asteroid mining.
Tesla and SpaceX also have a large joint venture together to build a massive chip manufacturing facility in the U.S. that can handle everything under one roof, from advanced logic chips to memory to advanced packaging.
What a $10,000 investment could be worth in 2030
Right now, there is a very good chance that SpaceX and Tesla will merge before 2030. In fact, prediction market Kalshi has odds of 57% that it happens before April 2027 and 77% that it happens before the end of 2028. Barclays analyst Dan Levy, meanwhile, thinks an announcement could come before Tesla's annual meeting on Dec. 6, 2026.
Given this growing likelihood, I'd assume SpaceX buys Tesla in an all-stock deal at about a 30% premium, with investors getting 3.16 SpaceX shares for each Tesla share they hold. That would give investors 68 shares of SpaceX after the merger.
For 2031, the Tesla revenue consensus estimate is $331 billion, while for SpaceX, it is $830.8 billion. Combined, that's $1.16 trillion in estimated annual revenue. Place a 10-times forward price-to-sales (P/S) ratio on the stock, given its still strong outer-year growth outlook, and the combined company would be worth $11.6 trillion, and its share count would rise to 25.65 billion shares following the merger. That would value the stock at around $452 in 2030, and 68 shares would be worth over $30,700. That would be a 3x-plus return over the next several years.
Of course, a merger doesn't have to take place, and there is a risk the combined company doesn't reach that revenue number given its reliance on future revenue sources like AI infrastructure, robots, and robotaxis. Nonetheless, this looks like it could be a strong combination to own, and buying these two growth stocks could be a smart bet.
Geoffrey Seiler has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.