Davis Wilson:

Musk’s xAI, SpaceX Combo Is the Biggest Merger of All Time, Valued at $1.25 Trillion

Elon Musk’s rocket maker SpaceX has acquired his artificial intelligence startup xAI in a deal that will value the company at $1.25 trillion. The record-setting transaction is the largest merger of all time and values SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion.

Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla, announced the deal in a blog post on Monday, saying he’s creating “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet,” and the X social media platform.

The main reason for the merger, he said, is to better build “orbital data centers.”

The merger agreement comes ahead of a highly anticipated blockbuster initial public offering for SpaceX later this year. The deal is structured as a share exchange, and will convert a share of xAI into 0.1433 share of SpaceX stock. Documents show xAI at $75.46 per share and SpaceX at $526.59 a share.

Bank valuation documents value SpaceX at between $859 billion and $1.26 trillion and xAI at between $219 billion and $294 billion.

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Ray Blanco:

Robotic Joints Inspired by Human Knees Correct 99% Misalignment, Grip 3× More

Engineers at Harvard have developed a new method to design robotic joints that mimic the human knee, potentially making robots more efficient and grippers stronger.

The approach uses rolling contact joints, pairs of curved surfaces that roll and slide against each other, held together with flexible connectors. It optimizes the shape of each joint component based on the forces and tasks it must perform. This allows the joint itself to direct energy efficiently, reducing the need for large actuators and complex control systems.

The idea grew from efforts to improve soft robotic grippers, which must wrap gently around objects while applying strong force. By combining rigid links with flexible joints, the team studied rolling contact joints as a way to mimic the bones and cartilage of human limbs.

In tests, a knee-like joint optimized with the new method corrected misalignment by 99% compared with a standard joint.

This approach marks a step toward robots and devices that move more naturally, using the mechanics themselves to solve complex motion problems rather than relying entirely on software.

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Enrique Abeyta:

Japan Retrieves Rare Earth-Rich Mud From Seabed To Lower Reliance on China

Japan said Monday it has successfully drilled and retrieved deep-sea sediment containing rare earth minerals from the seabed near a remote island.

The deep-sea drilling vessel Chikyu successfully gathered the sediment at a depth of nearly 6,000 kilometers near the island of Minamitorishima, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in a statement on X.

The test retrieval of the rare earths from that depth is a world first, she added.

“It is a first step toward industrialization of domestically produced rare earth in Japan,” Takaichi said. “We will make effort toward achieving resilient supply chains for rare earths and other critical minerals to avoid overdependence on a particular country."

Details, including the amount of rare earth contained, still need to be analyzed, officials said.

The Chikyu, which means Earth, departed last month for Minamitorishima, about 1,950 kilometers (1,210 miles) southeast of Tokyo, and arrived at the mining site on Jan. 17. The first batch of rare earth sediment was retrieved on Feb. 1, according to Japan's Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, which is conducting the survey.

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