Elon Musk may have another ambitious project brewing, though whether it exists is now part of the story.
Reports from The Wall Street Journal claim SpaceX recently showed investors a prototype of a slim, handset-like AI device designed around the company’s growing artificial intelligence ambitions.
People familiar with the matter told the Journal that the prototype was sleeker than an iPhone and was designed to run a proprietary operating system powered by AI technology from xAI, Musk’s AI unit. The reported hardware would also use Qualcomm Snapdragon chips.
According to the Journal, investors were told the project remains in its early stages, with designs still evolving and no guarantee that the device will ever ship. Shortly after reports surfaced, Musk publicly pushed back. “Utterly false,” Musk wrote on X, responding to the report.
The ‘everything app’ in your pocket
Despite Musk's denial, the reported device aligns closely with his long-held philosophical obsession: creating an American "everything app."
According to The Wall Street Journal’s sources, the prototype relies heavily on the super-app model popularized in Asia by platforms such as Tencent's WeChat and Ant's Alipay. Rather than forcing users to download dozens of separate applications to order food, text friends, or book travel, a single AI-driven interface manages it all.
Crucially, this hardware would serve as a unified platform for Musk’s sprawling ecosystem. By bypassing Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, a proprietary SpaceX device would liberate xAI’s Grok chatbot from rival app stores, freeing Musk from the ecosystem fees and content moderation guidelines he has publicly fought for years.
Why it matters
If SpaceX does push forward into consumer tech, it enters a notoriously unforgiving hardware ecosystem. Startups like Humane and Rabbit attempted to launch standalone AI gadgets, only to face catastrophic market failures.
It will also put SpaceX in a hardware race with serious competition. OpenAI has been developing its own AI device with former Apple design chief Jony Ive and recently added Paul Meade, the Apple executive who ran Vision Pro engineering, to that team. Sam Altman has pitched the device as something meant to feel calmer to use than a smartphone.
The hard part is not building it
The interesting question is not whether SpaceX can create a prototype. SpaceX already has experience building complex hardware and operates alongside companies within Musk's network that understand large-scale manufacturing and AI systems.
The challenge would be giving people a reason to carry something new. Consumers already have smartphones that handle messaging, payments, entertainment, cameras, and increasingly AI features.
Any dedicated AI device has to prove it can do something meaningfully different, rather than becoming just another experiment in a crowded field.
Also read: Tesla’s Cybercab testing in Austin marks an early public-road test for driverless hardware built without steering wheels or pedals.