KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is negotiating with a US firm to resume the hunt for missing flight MH370, a minister said Thursday, in news welcomed by the widow of one of those who had been on board.
The American company, Ocean Infinity as well as Dutch outfit Fugro, which had been involved in the original search, and an unidentified Malaysian company had put forward proposals to relaunch the hunt.
Ocean Infinity was reported to be favored after making a “no find, no fee” offer to search for the Malaysia Airlines plane.
The jet disappeared with 239 people on board in March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing after diverting from its flight path.
No sign of the plane was found in a 120,000 square kilometer (46,000 square mile) zone selected by satellite analysis of the jet’s likely trajectory.
The Australian-led hunt — the largest in history — was suspended in January, sparking criticism from families of those on board and some experts, who said it was called off too soon.
On Thursday, family members of passengers were sent a message by the MH370 Response Team in Malaysia saying they were in talks with Ocean Infinity on the terms of an agreement.
“The MH370 Response Team has received several proposals from interested parties to search for MH370,” said the emailed message, a copy of which was seen by AFP.
“These offers have been thoroughly assessed by the team and the governments of Australia and China... The government of Malaysia has given the permission for the response team to proceed negotiating the terms and conditions with Ocean Infinity.”
Malaysia’s Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi confirmed talks were under way.
“The ministry is still negotiating to finalize the terms... We favor Ocean Infinity,” he told AFP.
Danica Weeks, an Australian whose husband Paul was on the flight, told AFP she was “ecstatic that the Malaysian government is doing what they need to do to continue to find MH370.”
Ocean Infinity, which said in a statement that “good progress has been made” in negotiating the contract, claims it has the world’s largest and most advanced commercial fleet of underwater vehicles for conducting searches.
“We remain optimistic that we will be able to try and help provide some answers to those who have been affected by this tragedy,” a spokesman said in a statement to AFP.
Only three confirmed fragments of MH370 have been found, all of them on western Indian Ocean shores, including a two-meter wing part known as a flaperon.
Malaysia negotiating with US firm to resume MH370 hunt
Malaysia negotiating with US firm to resume MH370 hunt
SpaceX acquires xAI in record-setting deal as Musk looks to unify AI and space ambitions
- The deal is the biggest M&A transaction of all time
- Deal values xAI at $250 billion, SpaceX at $1 trillion
Elon Musk said on Monday that SpaceX has acquired his artificial-intelligence startup xAI in a record-setting deal that unifies Musk’s AI and space ambitions by combining the rocket-and-satellite company with the maker of the Grok chatbot. The deal, first reported by Reuters last week, represents one of the most ambitious tie-ups in the technology sector yet, combining a space-and-defense contractor with a fast-growing AI developer whose costs are largely driven by chips, data centers and energy. It could also bolster SpaceX’s data-center ambitions as Musk competes with rivals like Alphabet’s Google, Meta, Amazon-backed Anthropic and OpenAI in the AI sector.
The transaction values SpaceX at $1 trillion, and xAI at $250 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.
“This marks not just the next chapter, but the next book in SpaceX and xAI’s mission: scaling to make a sentient sun to understand the Universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars!” Musk said. The purchase of xAI sets a new record for the world’s largest M&A deal, a distinction held for more than 25 years when Vodafone bought Germany’s Mannesmann in a hostile takeover valued at $203 billion in 2000, according to data compiled by LSEG. The combined company of SpaceX and xAI is expected to price shares at about $527 each, another person familiar with the matter said. SpaceX was already the world’s most valuable privately held company, last valued at $800 billion in a recent insider share sale. XAI was last valued at $230 billion in November, according to the Wall Street Journal. The merger comes as the space company plans a blockbuster public offering this year that could value it at over $1.5 trillion, two people familiar with the matter said.
SpaceX, xAI and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The deal further consolidates Musk’s far-flung business empire and fortunes into a tighter, mutually reinforcing ecosystem – what some investors and analysts informally call the “Muskonomy” – which already includes Tesla, brain-chip maker Neuralink and tunnel firm the Boring Company. The world’s richest man has a history of merging his ventures together. Musk folded social media platform X into xAI through a share swap last year, giving the AI startup access to the platform’s data and distribution. In 2016, he used Tesla’s stock to buy his solar-energy company SolarCity.
The agreement could draw scrutiny from regulators and investors over governance, valuation and conflicts of interest given Musk’s overlapping leadership roles across multiple firms, as well as the potential movement of engineers, proprietary technology and contracts between entities.
SpaceX also holds billions of dollars in federal contracts with NASA, the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies, which all have some authority to review M&A transactions for national security and other risks.
