Elon Musk’s SpaceX reportedly showed off a prototype of a device that look like a smartphone. Supposedly, the “handset-like” device was a glimpse of the company’s vision of how human interact with AI.
Supposedly, the SpaceX device featured a sleek design that was “slimmer than an iPhone”, according to some stakeholders who caught a glimpse of it during the company’s IPO. There isn’t a whole lot of information surrounding the device, but sources close to the WSJ say that it was running on a proprietary operating system, as well as having integrated some AI technology from xAI. Oh, and the device reportedly ran on a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC.
The existence of the alleged device is surprising, given that the CEO of SpaceX has once publicly expressed that the idea of making a phone makes him “want to die”, but that if such a device needs to be made, then he will. For that matter, Musk denied that SpaceX was even making a smartphone when questioned by Reuters in February this year, posting the simple message of “We are not developing a phone” on his social media platform, X.
Expanding The Portfolio
In all honesty, having a SpaceX smartphone wouldn’t be out of character for both the company and the CEO, and the alleged device certainly falls in line with the company’s AI endeavours. Earlier in the year, Tesla, Musk’s EV brand, announced that it would stop production of its Model S and Model X this year, in order to focus on manufacturing AI-powered robots.
In the case of the AI-powered smartphone, having his own handheld device spells less reliance on currently available Android or Apple devices. To that end, it also aligns with his goal of creating an “everything app”, a concept that he championed when he officially acquired Twitter, now X, in 2022.
