"I feel like I'm tap dancing through a mine field," Elon Musk said on SpaceX's third-quarter earnings call on October 20, confirming that special committees of independent directors at SpaceX and Tesla have started examining a possible merger after shareholder requests. He said he thinks it is a good idea but warned "there's no guarantee that they will," noting that Tesla would need approval from 50% of all outstanding shares, a higher bar than a majority of votes cast, and described the process as an "odd kabuki dance" in which directors negotiate without him. The bitcoin angle comes from Arkham Intelligence entity data cited by Bitcoin.com News: SpaceX holds about 18,712 BTC and Tesla about 11,509, a combined 30,221 BTC valued at roughly $2.54 billion with bitcoin above $84,000. Their combined cost is near $1.05 billion, which leaves more than $1.4 billion of unrealized gains, and the merged company could rank as the sixth-largest publicly traded corporate bitcoin holder. Neither company has disclosed recent purchases or sales. Tesla stopped accepting bitcoin for cars in May 2021 and still does not, even though Cambridge research estimates sustainable energy reached 52.4% of mining in 2025, above the roughly 50% threshold Musk once set for reconsidering.