Elon Musk meets top officials on UAE visit

• Musk $750bn net worth
• Business interests in GCC
• SpaceX IPO expected in 2026

US billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has met with a number of Emirati officials on a trip to the UAE as rumours of a 2026 SpaceX listing swirl online.

Discussions on artificial intelligence were high on the agenda in meetings between Musk and Emirati ruler Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Musk owns electric vehicle company Tesla, space company SpaceX and artificial intelligence company xAI, which owns social media website X (formerly Twitter.)

Musk also met with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the crown prince of Dubai, the chairman of the UAE’s Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council and a number of other ministers and officials, the UAE state-owned news agency Wam reported on Monday.

Musk is the world’s richest person, with an estimated fortune of roughly $750 billion.

Musk’s space venture SpaceX, which is developing reusable rockets that can launch objects into space and return safely, is expected to IPO in 2026, in what some analysts have said could be the largest public offering of all time at $1.5 trillion.

In 2022, two Abu Dhabi-listed companies – International Holding Company and Alpha Dhabi – invested $25 million each in SpaceX.

• PIF expected to invest in Musk’s xAI
• Elon Musk’s Dubai Loop to be operational next year
• Starlink team in Iraq for final licensing talks

The South African-born entrepreneur has a number of business interests in the Middle East.

Musk’s civil engineering company, The Boring Company, is building an underground road system in Dubai known as the Dubai Loop, which aims to build 17km of tunnels in its initial phase. 

Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding put up nearly $2 billion for Musk’s 2022 purchase for $44 billion of Twitter and the Qatar Investment Authority handed over $375 million.

SpaceX’s Starlink is rapidly proving itself as the first satellite network capable of delivering high-quality broadband in the air, and Gulf airlines are moving aggressively to secure its services.