SpaceX Shows Investors an AI Prototype Thinner Than an iPhone

There’s a phone-shaped device making the rounds in SpaceX’s investor circles — and it’s thinner than an iPhone. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Elon Musk’s rocket company recently showed an AI prototype to select investors, offering a rare glimpse of where the billionaire sees his hardware ambitions heading next.

SpaceX is preparing for what’s expected to be one of the largest IPOs in history, and the prototype was part of the pitch to potential stakeholders. Details remain thin — the project is still in early R&D, and sources cautioned that it’s not clear if or when a consumer-facing product would actually materialize. What is known: the device looks like a sleek phone, and it’s notably thinner than Apple’s current iPhones.

Musk has talked about building a phone before. In 2024, after publicly blasting Apple’s partnership with OpenAI, he told a social media follower that making a phone wasn’t out of the question. But this prototype is the first physical evidence that SpaceX, not Tesla or xAI, is where the work is actually happening.

The timing is deliberate. SpaceX’s IPO is expected to draw massive demand, and a compelling AI hardware story is exactly the kind of narrative that can push valuations higher. Whether the device ever ships is anyone’s guess. But showing it now, ahead of a public offering, signals that Musk sees the intersection of AI and consumer hardware as central to his empire’s next chapter.

IT-NEWS has learned from the original report and social media posts that relatively little is known about the prototype’s specifications or intended use case. The project is at an exploratory stage, and SpaceX has made no public commitments about entering the smartphone or handheld AI market.