SpaceX is buying Tesla Megapacks at a much faster pace this year, and the spending shows how closely Elon Musk’s companies now overlap across space, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, and data infrastructure.
According to the company’s earnings report released on Tuesday, SpaceX spent $295 million on Tesla Megapack battery storage devices in the second quarter and $329 million so far this year.
A bigger battery bill at SpaceX
The Tesla Megapack is an industrial-scale battery storage device. In this case, the size of SpaceX’s purchases matters because it suggests the batteries are not a small operational add-on, but a meaningful infrastructure investment.
The $329 million total so far this year includes $295 million in the second quarter alone. That means most of the reported spending came in one quarter, showing a sharp ramp in purchases.
The source does not specify exactly where every Megapack is being installed. But it says the batteries are likely being deployed at the company’s xAI data centers.
That connection is important because xAI had already been buying Tesla Megapacks before it merged with SpaceX. Before the merger, the AI company bought $430 million worth of Megapacks for its data centers. In the first quarter of this year, xAI had purchased only $34 million worth of the equipment.
How Musk’s companies are connected
The purchases also highlight the interconnected structure of Elon Musk’s business world. Musk is the CEO and largest shareholder of SpaceX, and he also runs Tesla.
The relationship extends beyond those two companies. Musk’s artificial intelligence business xAI acquired his social media platform, X, in 2025. Earlier this year, SpaceX acquired xAI.
That sequence helps explain why a SpaceX filing would now reflect large purchases of Tesla energy storage equipment that appear connected to AI data center needs. It also shows how one Musk-led company can become a major customer for another.
SpaceX has made other purchases from Tesla as well. According to its regulatory filing, SpaceX reported that as of December 2025, it had acquired $131 million worth of Tesla Cybertrucks at manufacturer’s suggested retail price.
Why AI data centers need large batteries
The likely destination for the Tesla Megapacks is xAI’s data center infrastructure. The source says xAI has leaned heavily on natural gas to power its data centers, including dozens of unpermitted turbines at a site in Mississippi not far from the Colossus data center project.
Even with that reliance on natural gas, large batteries remain a critical part of data center operations. AI data centers do not use electricity in a flat, predictable way. Their demand rises and falls depending on the demands of training AI models and running inference.
Those shifts matter because AI systems depend on GPUs, and GPUs can require bursts of power when workloads increase. Batteries can provide extra power when GPUs demand it, helping the data center respond quickly.
Megapack-style batteries also provide backup power. The source notes that substantial backup power can be tapped in a second or less, which is valuable for facilities that need to keep running consistently.
What batteries solve for power demand
Power spikes can create operational and financial problems for data centers. When demand rises sharply, those peaks can trigger significant charges from a local utility or place pressure on on-site generators.
Batteries help smooth out those peaks. Instead of forcing the entire system to respond directly to sudden jumps in demand, stored energy can help cover short bursts and reduce stress on other power sources.
For an AI data center, that can support two goals at the same time:
- Continuity: keeping the facility operating consistently when workloads change quickly.
- Cost control: reducing the impact of power peaks that may lead to higher utility charges.
- Generator support: lowering the chance that on-site generators are overwhelmed during sharp demand increases.
That makes the Tesla Megapack spending more than a purchasing detail. It points to the practical energy challenge behind AI infrastructure: data centers need power systems that can handle fast changes, not just large totals.
The bigger signal from the Megapack purchases
SpaceX’s $329 million in Tesla Megapack purchases so far this year shows how AI infrastructure is becoming part of the company’s financial and operational picture after the xAI merger.
The spending also reflects a broader pattern inside Musk’s companies. Tesla supplies battery systems. xAI needs data center power capacity. SpaceX now owns xAI. The result is a chain of demand and supply that links major parts of Musk’s business network.
The source does not say how many Megapacks SpaceX bought, how much capacity the systems represent, or when they will be fully deployed. But the reported dollar amounts are large enough to show that battery storage is playing a significant role in the infrastructure around xAI’s data centers.
For now, the clearest takeaway is simple: as AI workloads rise and fall, data centers need energy systems that can react quickly. SpaceX’s Tesla Megapack purchases suggest that large batteries are becoming a central tool for meeting that need.