SpaceX and Tesla’s merger may be just weeks away, a new report claimsElon Musk has revealed a plan to buy 100GW of solar power equipmentMusk wants to use the gear to build a ‘sentient sun’ in outer spaceHigh-profile talks to merge Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla companies are moving ahead, Bloomberg claims, setting the scene for “a combination that could redefine the limits of global dealmaking.”Ongoing discussions are said to be progressing well, with Bloomberg reporting that the two companies’ boards are “hammering out the terms of the tie-up and governance structure of the combined entity, among other matters.” A deal could be struck as soon as December, just a couple of weeks from now, although it might slip into 2027. The combined companies would cover a broad range of industries, including space exploration, electric vehicles and battery technology. And considering SpaceX’s value sits at $1.9 trillion and Tesla is worth $1.5 trillion, the resulting $3 trillion conglomerate could be one of the largest and most valuable firms on the planet. That will likely bring attention from Democratic lawmakers now that the party controls both houses of Congress and has vowed to investigate Musk’s business dealings. There are also potential questions surrounding how the combined company will manage national security questions relating to SpaceX’s government contracts and Tesla’s large presence in China.Building a ‘sentient sun’(Image credit: Shutterstock/photosince)Elon Musk has said that one of the main motivators for the merger is his plan to build a “sentient sun” in outer space that would function as a kind of manmade satellite constellation. The resulting space-based data center system would be dubbed Starmind and get its power from the sun using built-in solar panels. In pursuit of this, SpaceX has just ordered 100 gigawatts’ worth of solar equipment from German firm Singulus, with the deal reportedly worth $69 million. Musk later clarified that the order was for 100GW of solar production equipment per year, not a one-off arrangement. However, SpaceX’s 2026 SEC filings indicate that in order to hit this target, the company would need to perform thousands of satellite launches per year, with some skeptics suggesting that the cost of operating such a system in space could be prohibitively high.As the Singulus order is for manufacturing equipment rather than the finished solar cells, it suggests that SpaceX wants to build its space-bound solar panels in house. Production is expected to begin in 2027 at Musk’s facility in Bastrop, Texas — by which point the merger with Tesla could be a done deal.