Last year, Musk said "the moon is a distraction." Now, he's talking about building a city there. The shift may be more strategic than it sounds.

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Elon Musk's AI company xAI, which includes Elon Musk's social media platform X, has just been acquired by Elon Musk's space company SpaceX.

Last week, Musk announced a record-setting, all-stock transaction in which SpaceX, the aerospace and defense juggernaut, acquired xAI, which owns and operates social network X and is the developer of Grok, the embattled AI chatbot and image generator.

SpaceX is prioritizing the moon over Mars, Elon Musk said, citing faster timelines and strategic urgency while maintaining the company’s long-term Mars ambitions.

By Joey Roulette WASHINGTON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - The space race between U.S. billionaires is heating up, with Elon Musk's SpaceX planning to build a lunar base and Jeff Bezos pushing Blue Origin's ambitions as both companies aim to return humans to the moon ahead of a planned mission by China in 2030.

"SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years," Musk claimed

Elon Musk is merging two of the companies that he leads, SpaceX and xAI (which also owns X), into one. According to an announcement from Musk: