Musk’s Grand Integration Meets the Limits of Language and Law
Feb/05/2026
Elon Musk is once again knitting together the strands of his industrial empire, announcing SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI in a deal that fuses rockets, satellites, and artificial intelligence into a single, vertically integrated enterprise valued at roughly $1.25 trillion. The move deepens an existing relationship — xAI has already powered Starlink support tools — and reflects Musk’s belief that the next leap in AI will depend on space-based infrastructure, from orbital data centers to solar-powered computing. Yet even as ambition accelerates, regulators are drawing firmer lines around what innovation can claim as proprietary. In Europe, trademark authorities this month rejected Tesla’s attempt to register 'ROBOTAXI', finding the term descriptive of autonomous taxi services rather than a distinctive brand, despite Tesla’s claim to have popularized it . The following table, showing 'ROBOTAXI' - named trademark applications filed across global offices in 2025, places that decision in a broader context, illustrating how intensely the term has been pursued worldwide — and why regulators are increasingly reluctant to grant exclusive rights over language that is fast becoming industry shorthand.
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