What do brain implants, space rockets and electric cars have in common?
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla’s billionaire, said he is open to the opportunity to join his various companies under one umbrella, similar to Google’s business turmoil five years ago.
“Good idea,” Musk tweeted after to be threw the idea by David Lee, a Tesla investor and YouTuber. On Twitter Wednesday, Lee suggested that Musk create a holding company called “X,” Tesla’s parent company, rocket builder SpaceX, tunnel builder The Boring Company, and brain implant startup Neuralink.
It’s unclear if Musk is seriously considering moving or just entertaining one of his 41 million Twitter followers, as he often does.
Regardless, there’s a notable precedent: Google founded a new parent company called Alphabet in 2015 to house its signature search engine and internet services alongside its other various businesses, such as self-driving car unit Waymo and artificial intelligence company DeepMind.
There are many lingering questions about how Musk would carry out a similar restructuring, such as whether the X company would be publicly traded like Tesla or kept private like SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Neuralink.
But Lee claims the move would make it easier for the world’s second-richest man to oversee his existing businesses and start new ones. In addition, he noted, Musk already owns the domain name for X.com, an online bank he founded in 1999.
“This is not a move aimed at increasing the market cap or stock price,” Lee said on Twitter. “Rather, this is a step towards creating the structure for Elon to continue to make big bets for humanity and have the time to manage them.”
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. The electric car manufacturer’s stock price rose about 2.7 percent to $ 663.61 from 11:45 a.m.