VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis will visit the Turkish city of Istanbul at the end of November, his first trip to a predominantly Muslim nation, at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Vatican announced on Friday.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said the exact dates and the program for the trip, which will last several days, were still not fixed.
Francis has already received an invitation from the Patriarch Bartholomew, the head of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople.
The Roman Catholic leader had expressed a desire to attend Eastern Orthodox commemorations in Istanbul in honor of St. Andrew, one of the apostles, on his feast day, November 30.
He and Bartholomew met following his election in March 2013, and again on a trip to the Middle East. In 2006 his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, also visited Turkey.
Francis has made three official trips during his pontificate: to Brazil, the Middle East and to South Korea last month.
He is making a visit to Strasbourg on November 25 to address the European Parliament, and has also announced travel to Albania.
Sri Lankan brouhaha
In Colombo, the Roman Catholic church urged Sri Lankans not to politicize a visit by the pope in January amid reports that President Mahinda Rajapakse may hold a snap election early next year.
Cardinal Malcom Ranjith, the head of the Catholic church on the island, called on Rajapakse’s government not to use Pope Francis’ visit from January 13-15 as a “political tool.”
His remarks came amid intense media speculation that Rajapakse, who removed the two-term limit on the presidency after his 2010 re-election, was preparing a poll early next year.
“We have told the president that it is not appropriate for a pope to visit a country that is in the middle of an election campaign,” the cardinal told reporters in Colombo.
“The visit should not be used as a political tool by the government, or the opposition, or anybody else for that matter.”
Sri Lanka is mainly a Buddhist country, but it has a 7.5 percent Christian population whose block vote could be decisive in the event of a close presidential election.
Asked if it would be acceptable if a snap election is concluded before the papal visit, Cardinal Ranjith said: “The government has to decide on those things.... It must be a visit free of politics. That is the position of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference.”
The 77-year-old pope is due to spend three days in Sri Lanka before heading to the Philippines — Asia’s largest Catholic country.
He is scheduled to travel to the island’s former war zone and conduct mass at a church which suffered damage during the height of fighting between troops and Tamil rebels.
Sri Lanka ended 37-years of ethnic bloodshed after wiping out the leadership of Tamil Tiger rebels in a no-holds-barred 2009 military campaign that has also triggered allegations of war crimes.
Pope gets set for Turkey visit; Lanka told not to politicize papal trip
Pope gets set for Turkey visit; Lanka told not to politicize papal trip
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.
