Elon Musk is creating a new "future story" for his newly integrated business empire (SpaceX + xAI): no longer focusing on Mars colonization, but on "lunar base Alpha" - building cities on the moon, deploying AI supercomputers, and driving massive computing power with solar energy.

According to TechCrunch, Musk has painted this blueprint internally for employees: building a base on the lunar surface; use the "mass drive" (an electromagnetic catapult device) on the moon to launch AI satellites directly into deep space; By capturing solar energy, AI is provided with more than 1 terawatt of computing power per year – which is several times the current electricity consumption worldwide.

This idea comes against the backdrop of a series of departures from xAI executives and a setback in team morale. Musk clearly wants to use this grand vision to re-attract top talent and create market excitement for the merged company's future IPO.

What do investors think?

Although the technical difficulty of building an AI data center on the moon is astronomical and almost impossible to achieve in the short term, Musk is well versed in the "power of narrative": for retail investors, this is another "world-changing" story like Tesla back then, which is easy to ignite enthusiasm; For engineers and scientists, this also provides a new challenge to jump out of the "volume model" - from writing code to "interstellar infrastructure".

From "Mars Dream" to "Lunar AI Center"

In the past, Musk always showed cool pictures of Mars colonization at xAI all-staff conferences, talking about the vision of "making humans a multi-planetary species".

But at the most recent meeting, he changed the protagonist to the lunar base. At the end of his speech, he proposed: first build an AI data center in Earth orbit; But to truly break through the limits of computing power, we must go to deep space; In the future, supercomputers will be built on the moon, and a large magnetic levitation device called a "mass drive" will be used to "catapult" them directly to various parts of the solar system.

According to TechCrunch, SpaceX has already quietly downplayed the Mars plan: in 2017, it abandoned the plan to land on Mars with the "Dragon spacecraft" because the technology was too difficult and the cost was too high;

The "Starship" originally designed for Mars has now adjusted its focus - mainly doing two more profitable things:

launching Starlink satellites;

Carry out NASA's $4 billion manned mission to the moon.

Why choose the moon and not Mars?

It's simple: no one pays for Mars, and the moon can make money. Mars colonization sounds cool, but there are neither customers nor sources of income; and the lunar base can be directly linked to xAI's AI computing power needs - using space solar energy to support ultra-large-scale AI training, telling a new story of "technology + business"

Musk is not giving up on the space dream, but pulling the dream from "distant Mars" back to the "closer and more practical moon", so that the grand vision can also be connected to the power of reality - and the appetite of capital.

Recruit people with new stories: from "going to Mars" to "building AI supercomputers on the moon"

In the past nine years, "occupying Mars" has not only been Musk's dream, but also SpaceX's most powerful recruitment trump card. This slogan made employees' blood boil and made SpaceX stand out among a bunch of space companies that only stared at government orders

But now, with xAI (Musk's artificial intelligence team) on the map, he needs a new story that can tie rockets and AI together.

Why? Because some departing executives complained: "Now all AI laboratories are doing exactly the same thing - training large models and adjusting parameters, which is too boring." ”

And the idea of "building a solar system-class supercomputer on the moon on a large scale" suddenly breaks the homogenization and sounds crazy and cool. In order to add a "sense of science" to this idea, Musk brought out the "Kardashov Index" - a theory that measures the level of civilization: low-level civilizations can only use energy from the earth; Advanced civilizations can build space facilities and directly "harvest" the energy of the sun.

What he wants to convey is that we are not writing ordinary code, but paving the way for humanity to move towards a higher civilization. This grand, sci-fi narrative has a clear purpose:

Rekindle the passion of engineers;

Let xAI not just another AI company, but a mission-oriented organization that "changes human civilization".

Although the lunar base is far away, there is a business abacus behind it

While "building AI cities on the moon" sounds like science fiction, experts believe that it is not entirely fanciful.

With the global demand for computing power skyrocketing and ground data centers becoming more and more expensive, building data centers in Earth orbit may really work by the 2030s.

SpaceX's acquisition of xAI and its proposal to use space assets to support AI computing power is actually betting on the future trend of "computing power to the sky" in advance. Of course, there are still huge challenges to build advanced computers weighing several tons on the moon: the cost of entering space must be greatly reduced; Where do the raw materials on the moon come from? How to transport equipment? How to produce?

So at present, this is more like a long-term vision than an immediate plan.

What does the market think? The key is whether investors buy it or not

If retail investors are moved by this grand story of "moon + AI", the valuation of the combined company may be pushed up. As TechCrunch analyzed, Musk is actually doing two things:

Make SpaceX stock the next "Tesla-style" popular investment target - relying on imagination and futuristic to attract funds.

Label xAI as unique: not just another AI company that makes large models, but a pioneer in "building an interstellar computing power network".