Tesla x SpaceX: Cold-Gas Thrusters Make the Roadster Fly and Fuel Merger Rumors
Trending Topics Jakob Steinschaden ● Covered by 2 sources
Tesla showed off a Roadster with SpaceX help, and it can actually lift off a bit. That demo also kicked merger rumors back into gear.
Based on reporting by Trending Topics, Jakob Steinschaden — read the original for the full story.
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Tesla didn’t just unveil a new Roadster. It turned SpaceX’s test site in McGregor, Texas, into part car show, part rocket demo, with a Raptor engine test firing at the start and Elon Musk posting the whole thing on X with the words “Tesla x SpaceX.” That was enough to send the merger chatter back into orbit.
The stunt rests on two systems. One uses fans in the rear diffuser to pull air from under the car and press it hard onto the road. Tesla says the effect is strong enough that the Roadster can cling upside down to a wall while standing still. On the ramp, the display showed 4,700 kilograms of downforce, and Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, said the setup should allow more than 2 g in corners.
The more dramatic part is the cold-gas thruster setup. Instead of burning fuel, the car stores compressed air in two carbon-fiber overwrapped pressure vessels holding 600 liters, or about 250 kilograms of air. Tesla says it used every usable void in the car to fit them. The air exits through 10 nozzles, with four at the rear pushing the car forward and the rest firing downward for lift and soft landings. Electric actuators adjust the nozzles and help stabilize the car in the air. Tesla says the thrust exceeds 80 kilonewtons, enough to hold more than 8,000 kilograms against gravity.
Musk made the whole thing sound like a party trick with consequences. During the demo, a “Starman” mannequin sat in the car while it drove itself. He said the Roadster was “literally just going to puff itself up,” and later called it “better than any James Bond car.” But the legal and practical picture is much duller. The base Performance version has no thrusters. Tesla’s Thrust version is called “race ready,” while the flying Rocket version is not approved for public roads and is invitation only. Tesla also has no FAA aircraft certification, and it has not commented on approval in Europe.
That’s where the merger rumors get serious. Barclays analyst Dan Levy thinks a deal could come this year, possibly as an all-stock SpaceX acquisition of Tesla, with Tesla shareholders getting a premium. The analysts see AI as the logic: Tesla’s robotaxis and Optimus, SpaceX’s Grok, Starlink, energy storage for data centers in space, and Musk’s Terafab chip plan all look neater under one roof. Whether that is strategy or stagecraft is the real question, and this show looked very comfortable being both.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is classic Musk theater: a wild demo that is part engineering, part stock-ticker fan fiction. The tech may be real, but the timing also smells like a neat way to warm up investors to a combination nobody has actually confirmed. The modern trick is simple: build something flashy enough and people will do the merger math for you.
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