In its earnings report released on Tuesday, SpaceX said it spent $295 million on Tesla Megapack battery storage units in the second quarter and has purchased $329 million worth of the devices so far this year.
The disclosed purchases underscore the interconnections among Elon Musk’s companies: Musk is CEO and largest shareholder of SpaceX and also runs Tesla. His artificial intelligence firm xAI acquired the social media platform X in 2025, and earlier this year SpaceX acquired xAI.
The industrial-scale Megapack batteries are likely intended for deployment at xAI’s data centers. Before merging with SpaceX, xAI bought $430 million worth of Megapacks for its facilities; in the first quarter of this year xAI purchased only $34 million in such equipment.
SpaceX’s regulatory filing also notes that as of December 2025 the company had acquired $131 million worth of Tesla Cybertrucks at the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.
Although xAI has relied heavily on natural gas to power its data centers — including dozens of unpermitted turbines at a Mississippi site near the Colossus data center project — large battery systems like the Megapack remain a critical component of data-center infrastructure.
Batteries provide substantial backup power available within a second and can deliver extra capacity to GPUs during demand spikes. AI data centers do not draw power at a steady rate; their consumption ramps up and down depending on training and inference workloads. These peaks can trigger significant charges from a local utility or overwhelm on-site generators. Batteries smooth out demand spikes, lower operating costs, and help ensure continuous operation.
Why this matters
The significant investment in Tesla Megapacks highlights the central role of energy storage in running high-performance AI workloads, particularly for firms that operate large-scale data centers alongside mixed energy sources. It also illustrates the financial and operational links among Elon Musk’s companies.
