SpaceX + xAI deal gets us one step closer to Musk Industries | E2243
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.2 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 February 2026
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
Uber - http://uber.com/twist
Deel - http://deel.com/twist
Northwest Registered Agent - https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
Today’s show:
SpaceX is buying xAI, forming a mega-corp that plans to launch data centers into SPACE. Will Tesla also join up, fulfilling Elon’s destiny to become real-life Tony Stark, with his own Musk Industries? Jason and Alex break down the future of SpaceXAI in a breaking news report.
THEN, we’re still celebrating OpenClaw (née Clawdbot) Mania! Oliver and Lukas return to TWiST to share their Almost Top 10 (okay it’s just a Top 6) favorite Skills so far.
Learn how they’re using Replicants to summarize TWiST episodes, surf Reddit, produce original Gamma decks, train agents to make themselves smarter, and take care of LAUNCH’s administrative and operations tasks.
Timestamps:
(00:00) BREAKING: SpaceX bought xAI!
(1:56) Why it will be cheaper to generate compute in space than here on Earth
(8:19) Will Tesla eventually join the club, forming “Musk Industries”?
(11:36) Uber AI Solutions - Your trusted partner to get AI to work in the real world. Book a demo with them TODAY at http://uber.com/twist
(12:37) ALSO BREAKING: We’re still obsessing about Clawdbot/OpenClaw
(14:58) So is OpenClaw and all of its various skills secure yet? NO.
(16:42) Today we’re looking at our picks for the Top 6 OpenClaw skills
(17:13) Alex’s first pick: Reddit (read only), which makes it easier to track down what you want on the aggregator
(19:35) Reddit hates bots! But maybe they’ll change their tune?
(21:47) Deel - Founders ship faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes and get back to building. Visit http://deel.com/twist to learn more.
(22:46) Our Replicant summarized the last few episodes of TWiST… but at what COST? (18 cents)
(26:40) Lukas taught our Replicant to make Gamma decks for us
(29:23) Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
(30:21) Our Replicant has ALL the Polymarket data now! The power!
(34:14) AI agents are also playing cards together on ClawPoker
(35:07) Oliver tested out our pal Matt Van Horn’s (@mvanhorn) self-improving “Last 30 Days” skill
(38:22) Why memory is so crucial for getting models to improve themselves over time
(40:33) Yo dawg I know you like monitoring tasks so I built you a task monitor that monitors your tasks so you can task monitor your tasks
(41:40) What makes OpenClaw so powerful is also what makes it dangerous!
(49:12) If you want to really learn about OpenClaw, you need to make your own skills
(50:03) Jason’s advice for OpenClaw’s suddenly famous creator: Peter Steinberger (@steipete)
(56:31) What would be the best way(s) to monetize OpenClaw?
(57:54) Will an OpenClaw agent sue a human in court?
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X: https://x.com/lons
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X: https://x.com/alex
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm/
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Thank you to our partners:
(11:36) Uber AI Solutions - Your trusted partner to get AI to work in the real world. Book a demo with them TODAY at http://uber.com/twist
(21:47) Deel - Founders ship faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes and get back to building. Visit http://deel.com/twist to learn more.
(29:23) Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | SpaceX has acquired XAI. |
| 0:02.0 | Elon's companies might merge ahead of the eventual IPO of SpaceX. So the news is that SpaceX has acquired XAI. We're still sorting out the exact financials of the deal, Jason. But the idea, as far as we can suss it out thus far, is that eventually we're going to have a lot more compute. Eventually, we're going to need a lot more power. Where is there a lot of available power up in orbit where there's quite a lot of sunlight? Put all that together. SpaceX can send more mass up to orbit. We can build more data centers up there. XAI needs compute. So we're going to build XAI's AI feature in space via our difference of SpaceX. But as we learned talking to the folks over at StarCloud, a startup that's building data centers in space, There's a big bet that Starship and other similar heavy launch vehicles will be able to bring |
| 0:40.7 | up quite a lot more mass at a much lower price point. |
| 0:43.4 | So I think the idea here is by 20xing, the ability per rocket to get stuff up, this is all |
| 0:49.1 | going to become quite feasible. |
| 0:58.5 | This week in startups is brought to you by Northwest Registered Agent. |
| 1:01.5 | Get more when you start your business with Northwest. |
| 1:07.6 | In 10 clicks in 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity. |
| 1:14.4 | Learn more at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash twist. Deal. Founders should faster on deal. Set up payroll for any country in minutes and get back to building. Visit |
| 1:19.8 | deal.com slash twist to learn more. And Uber AI Solutions. Bad data equals bad AI. Your AI is only as good as the data it learns from. Uber. That's right. Uber AI Solutions now works with enterprises around the world to source, label, evaluate, and scale real world high quality data for every industry, everywhere, so that you can focus on |
| 1:46.7 | building the next big thing. |
| 1:49.1 | High quality data equals smarter and faster AI, Uber.com slash twist. |
| 1:54.9 | All right, everybody, breaking news story as Alex Wilhelm and I were on air recording today's twist episode. We saw news |
| 2:03.1 | from Steve Jervidson that SpaceX has acquired XAI. Alex, give us the quick facts here as you |
| 2:12.0 | see them in the letter. Yeah. Well, there's been a lot of news discussing that Elon's companies |
| 2:16.6 | might merge ahead of the eventual IPO of SpaceX. So the news is that SpaceX has acquired XAI. We're still sorting out the exact financials of the deal, Jason. But the idea, as far as we can suss it out thus far, is that eventually we're going to have a lot more compute. Eventually, we're going to need a lot more power. Where is there a lot of available power up in orbit where there's quite a lot of sunlight? Put all that together. SpaceX can send more mass up to orbit. We can build more data centers up there. XAI needs compute. So we're going to build XAI's AI future in space via our difference of SpaceX. I think that's the summary. And there were some specific numbers that I guess Elon put in his letter. Maybe we could pull that up and just read that, since that will give it directly from the horse's mouth. |
| 2:55.2 | Here is the letter from Elon over on the Space X website. |
| 2:59.7 | Now, the thing that really stuck out to me, Jason, is this quote right here discussing how says, quote, |
| 3:06.2 | this year of Starship will begin delivering the much more powerful |
| 3:08.8 | of V3-strong satellites to orbit, with each launch adding more than 20 times the capacity |
| 3:12.6 | to the constellation as the current Falcon launches. Why does that matter? Well, right now, with our |
| 3:18.0 | current launch capacity as a species, I think building data centers in space is essentially |
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