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Elon Musk quietly buys a $1 billion gas turbine company to power Grok
https://electrek.co/2026/07/14/musk-buys-gas-turbine-company-apr-energy-grok/Elon Musk has quietly bought APR Energy, a Jacksonville-based company that operates a fleet of mobile gas and diesel turbines totaling more than 1 GW of generation capacity.
The self-styled champion of a “solar electric economy” now owns a fossil fuel power company — and he’s buying it to feed the electricity-hungry data centers running xAI’s Grok.
There was no press release. The acquisition surfaced through a Federal Trade Commission early termination notice — transaction number 20261350, dated May 14, 2026 — which cleared the deal without further antitrust review.
-snip-
APR doesn’t run a traditional power plant. It deploys trailer-mounted gas turbines and reciprocating diesel and natural gas engines that can reach full power in under 10 minutes and be installed in days rather than the years it takes to permit and build a fixed plant. The fuel is natural gas and diesel. This is fossil-fuel combustion, packaged to move.
-snip-
The self-styled champion of a “solar electric economy” now owns a fossil fuel power company — and he’s buying it to feed the electricity-hungry data centers running xAI’s Grok.
There was no press release. The acquisition surfaced through a Federal Trade Commission early termination notice — transaction number 20261350, dated May 14, 2026 — which cleared the deal without further antitrust review.
-snip-
APR doesn’t run a traditional power plant. It deploys trailer-mounted gas turbines and reciprocating diesel and natural gas engines that can reach full power in under 10 minutes and be installed in days rather than the years it takes to permit and build a fixed plant. The fuel is natural gas and diesel. This is fossil-fuel combustion, packaged to move.
-snip-
Much more at the link, including the information that "over half of Grok’s traffic is now driven by adult content" - porn image/video generation, erotica, and sexually explicit AI-companion chats.
I found this article via a Gizmodo story today: https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-quietly-bought-a-medium-sized-fossil-fuel-energy-company-back-in-may-2000786231
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