ANKARA: The foreign ministers of Germany and Turkey will meet this weekend as Ankara seeks to douse tensions with the EU that blighted 2017, Turkish officials said on Wednesday.
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel will host Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in his home town of Goslar in Lower Saxony on Saturday, the officials said.
The visit will represent the German leg of talks between the two men who met in November in Cavusoglu’s home region of Antalya in southern Turkey.
Cavusoglu said he would meet Gabriel on Jan. 6 at a briefing with Turkish reporters in Ankara quoted by state media.
A Foreign Ministry official, contacted by AFP, confirmed the meeting would be in Goslar. The German Foreign Ministry said a meeting was planned there without giving a date.
Relations between Turkey and Germany hit a nadir last year as Berlin strongly criticized the crackdown after the failed coup that left over 55,000 arrested and Ankara accused Berlin of meddling.
Tensions with other EU members, including Austria and the Netherlands, meanwhile appeared to bring Turkey’s bid to join the EU to a shuddering halt.
But Ankara has issued a flurry of signals in recent days it wants warmer relations with the EU and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is heading to France on Friday for talks with President Emmanuel Macron.
The better tone has been helped by the shared opposition of both Turkey and key EU states, including France and Germany, to President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Berlin was particularly incensed by the holding of several German nationals in a crackdown after the coup bid, although tensions eased slightly following several releases in recent months.
Most recently, German pilgrim David Britsch and German journalist Mesale Tolu were set free by Turkey in developments welcomed by Berlin.
However, the correspondent of the Die Welt daily newspaper, Deniz Yucel, a German-Turkish dual national arrested in February, remains behind bars and not even a date for his trial has been set.
Top German, Turkish envoys to meet in Germany
Top German, Turkish envoys to meet in Germany
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.
