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Elon Musk talks possible legacy auto merger: ‘We would have this conversation’
Tesla CEO Elon Musk talked about the possibility of a merger between his electric automotive company and a legacy carmaker. Musk made the comments while accepting the Axel Springer Award in Germany on Tuesday.
Musk has managed to maintain a number of notable relationships with the CEOs of competing companies. The most obvious is with Volkswagen Board Chairman Herbert Diess, but Musk has been supportive of other companies that are attempting to transition to sustainability. However, Tesla is the only fully-electric automaker that maintains a relatively active competition with some of the world’s largest and most popular petrol-engine companies. After Tesla’s recent surge in stock price, which has catapulted the company to become the most valuable in the world, the possibility of Tesla partnering up or merging with another company is certainly on the table.
Tesla could even end up buying an automaker because of its massive valuation, which stands at $554.29 billion at the time of writing. This could supply Tesla with the infrastructure to begin a massive effort to manufacture cars, and could also accelerate the sustainable energy transition even more. Because of the possibility, Musk was asked about Tesla obtaining another car company during his award acceptance in Germany.
CEO Mathias Döpfner questioned whether Tesla had ever seriously considered this option, to which Musk replied:
“We are definitely not going to launch a hostile takeover, but if somebody said it would be a good idea to Merge with Tesla, we would have this conversation.”
While Musk didn’t expand on any current talks Tesla may or may not be in with other car companies, the quote certainly is thought invoking. Tesla obtaining another car company has a wide variety of benefits, and the fact that Musk would be open to the idea is interesting, to say the least.
For example, if Tesla were to merge with Volkswagen, it would establish a solid foundation for European manufacturing and would be highly advantageous considering the German company has a notable EV infrastructure already. Even though Volkswagen has admitted Tesla is several years ahead in terms of EVs, having less of a transition for Tesla to flip manufacturing facilities to be EV-specific would certainly help the timing of the whole process. If Tesla were to obtain a company like Ford, which doesn’t have any released EVs, it might cause a delay in turning production plants from gas-specific to EV-specific.
However, it is a much more complex issue than that, and it comes down to far too many factors to list.
Musk’s full Award Ceremony and interview is available below.
Elon Musk
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $1T pay package gets candid synopsis from Jim Cramer
Tesla’s $1 trillion pay package, which it proposed to Shareholders to vote on November 6 for its CEO Elon Musk has drawn a lot of attention lately.
Among those vocalizing their thoughts and feelings about the incentive program are proxy firms, investment analysts, and retail shareholders.
However, one analyst that always seems to draw some attention, especially when it comes to things related to Tesla and Musk, is Mad Money host Jim Cramer, who routinely puts his opinions out into the public realm when it comes to the company and its CEO.
Last week, Cramer gave a short breakdown of what he thinks the company and its shareholders should do on the social media platform X. He’s gone deeper into the pay package conversation with a candid synopsis of where he stands with it.
Cramer is no slouch when it comes to breaking down companies and what their strengths and weaknesses are.
He recognizes Musk and his contributions to Tesla, especially in terms of its prowess as an automaker, an AI play, and a robotics entity. In his more lengthy breakdown of the mentality behind rewarding Musk, he writes:
“Then there’s Musk. He’s using AI to make the best full self-driving car. He’s using it to dominate the Robotaxi game, or at least try. There’s no doubt that he’s got the best self-driving alternative on a price basis…Musk has put AI to the test, and he recognized that if you could develop better and bigger, and stronger batteries, that might be the answer for our energy-starved country…”
This is essentially an echo of what he said last week, which included some of the same ideas. Musk is ultimately the right man for the job, Cramer believes, especially considering the analyst calls him one of the few CEOs who is “actually worth it,” in terms of his potentially massive payday:
“Hate him or like him, man, this guy’s real smart…I think that Musk, who says he needs to be in control so the robots don’t take over, clearly wishes he had two classes of stock so he could be like Mark Zuckerberg, who can do whatever he wants with Meta. I say, even though he didn’t start the company and therefore doesn’t have the two classes, give the man the pay package he wants. Unlike so many other CEOs, he’s actually worth it.”
Tesla shareholders will vote on the package on November 6, but a handful of proxy firms have already noted that they will be going against it. Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis both voted not to offer Musk this pay package.
Musk called them “corporate terrorists” last week during the company’s Q3 Earnings Call.
News
Tesla makes a massive change to a Service policy that owners will love
If you have a subscription to Full Self-Driving or Premium Connectivity for 30 days, the date of its expiration is 30 days after you activate the subscription, even if the vehicle was in service.
Tesla has decided to update its policy on Subscriptions and Service, and owners are going to love it.
If you have a subscription to Full Self-Driving or Premium Connectivity for 30 days, the date of its expiration is 30 days after you activate the subscription, even if the vehicle was in service.
So, if your car was with Tesla Service for five days, you essentially lost those five days, as your expiration date was not adjusted to reflect the time the vehicle was unusable.
Loaners that Tesla gives owners are usually equipped with perks like Full Self-Driving and Premium Connectivity, so your subscription does not roll over to another vehicle.
However, Tesla has decided to revise that policy in an effort to give owners full access to the subscriptions they paid for. It requires Service visits to be longer than one day.
In a communication to an owner who was having their vehicle serviced, Tesla said:
“A loaner vehicle may be available during your appointment (pending availability) – please check the app closer to your appointment for the latest updates and access details. If your repair requires more than one business day, any active subscriptions or free trials will be extended accordingly.”
Tesla will now extend active subscriptions and free trials if your car was in service for more than 1 business day pic.twitter.com/HdtDEwk3e6
— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) October 20, 2025
The move is a good one from a customer service standpoint, especially considering the loss of even a few days of a 30-day subscription to something like Full Self-Driving, which costs $99 per month, can be frustrating.
Tesla’s choice to extend the subscription duration for the length of the service visit is a good-faith move that customers will appreciate.
While this adjustment is not directly related to Service, many customers will relate it to that. It’s yet another move Tesla has made in 2025 to make its Service experience better for customers.
It is also offering more options to communicate with Service advisors during and after cars are repaired, which can help streamline the entire visit from start to finish.
News
SpaceX reaches incredible Starlink milestone
SpaceX has reached an incredible milestone with its Starlink program, officially surpassing 10,000 satellites launched into low Earth orbit since starting the program back in 2019.
Last Sunday, October 19, SpaceX launched its 131st and 132nd Falcon 9 missions of 2025, one from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and the other from Vandenberg, California.
The 10,000th Starlink satellite was aboard the launch from California, which was Starlink 11-19, and held 28 v2 mini optimized satellites.
The achievement was marked by a satellite tracker developed by Jonathan McDowell.
🚨 With its Falcon 9 launch last Sunday, SpaceX officially has 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit pic.twitter.com/xS5RVZ4ix0
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2025
The first Starlink launch was all the way back on May 23, 2019, as SpaceX launched its first 60 satellites from Cape Canaveral using a Falcon 9 rocket.
Of the over 10,000 satellites in orbit, the tracker says 8,608 are operational, as some are intentionally de-orbited after becoming faulty and destroyed in the atmosphere.
SpaceX has truly done some really incredible things during its development of the Starlink program, including launch coverage in a global setting, bringing along millions of active subscribers that use the service for personal and business use, locking up commercial partnerships, and more.
Starlink currently operates in around 150 countries, territories, and markets and is available at least somewhere on all seven continents.
Additionally, Starlink has over 5 million subscribers worldwide, and 2.7 million have joined the program over the past year. It has revolutionized internet access on commercial aircraft as well, as several high-profile airlines like Qatar and United, among many others, have already installed Starlink on some of their planes to deliver more stable connectivity for passengers and crew.
SpaceX has the approval to launch 12,000 Starlink satellites from the FAA, but it plans to bring over 30,000 to its constellation, giving anyone the ability to have access to high-speed internet.
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