FTC approves Elon Musk's acquisition of SpaceX alumni startup Mesh Optical Technologies
Tags Infrastructure · AI
The Federal Trade Commission granted Elon Musk clearance to acquire Mesh Optical Technologies, a startup founded by SpaceX alumni that emerged from stealth in February 2026 with a $50 million Series A round. Mesh develops optical interconnect technology for data centers, aligning with Musk's orbital data center ambitions. The FTC approval removes a regulatory hurdle for the acquisition, which was subject to antitrust review given Musk's growing technology portfolio spanning Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, and X.
Technical significance
Mesh's optical interconnect technology addresses the bandwidth and latency bottlenecks in AI data center clusters. Musk's interest signals that next-generation AI compute infrastructure requires fundamental advances in chip-to-chip and rack-to-rack communication, not just more GPUs. The $50M Series A and subsequent acquisition interest validates optical interconnects as a critical AI infrastructure investment thesis.