For a man who was thought of as a dreamer, and pumped full of nothing but hot air, Elon Musk is surely having the last laugh today, having outpaced Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to become the richest man in the world, although a lot of that money is basically stock.

But way before Musk became the main man at Tesla and turned the company around, he had already launched Space X. The man believes that humans will probably end up killing the very planet we live on, and the time to look into space to find a new home is nigh.

Mars is on his mind and has been for a while, so SpaceX was launched for this purpose alone, to make rockets and rocket launching cheap and affordable. So this is the man behind the cheap-ifiction of space and the electrification of cars, and like with everything, his two babies are deeply intertwined. More than what the common SpaceX fan or Tesla groupie realizes.

Here’s how Musk has managed to leverage the best of SpaceX and Tesla into working for each other, which in the end seems to have worked for his bank balance, and of course, the end consumer, you. Here's a brief look into the history of Tesla and SpaceX…

RELATED: The Real Story Behind Tesla’s Electric Car Dominance

The Origins Of SpaceX & Tesla

Not Many Would Know It But Musk Founded SpaceX Way Before He Became Part Of Tesla, Or In Fact Even Before Tesla Came Into Being
Via Twitter

Not many would know it but Musk founded SpaceX way before he became part of Tesla, or in fact even before Tesla came into being. SpaceX was founded by Musk in 2002, and Tesla came into being in 2003. That said, Musk got involved with Tesla only later, in 2004, and became CEO in 2008 after one of the founders was made to leave.

Transactions between the two firms are but natural because Musk knows how to use each company’s USP to the other’s advantage. You might say that a re-usable rocket maker and an electric car maker may have nothing in common with each other. But that’s where you’d be wrong, and or rather, you simply would not be Musk.

RELATED: Unmasking Elon Musk: What You Don’t Know

Why Tesla & SpaceX Can Work Very Well In Tandem

Space X Sent A Red Tesla Roadster Into Space
Via TheConversation

The very idea of SpaceX is to make reusable rockets – the kind that is cheap to make, cheap to send into space, can safely land back on Earth and then re-used for other missions. The end goal is to make a viable spacecraft to finally be able to populate a planet like Mars, meaning rockets that can carry humans safely in and out of Earth, and to other colonies.

This means SpaceX rockets have to be light and they have to have expertise in making lightweight material. This is what Musk feels can work to Tesla’s advantage. And this is why Tesla Model S has an aluminum body chassis, and Musk goes on to claim that it’s the only all-aluminum car made in North America, for now.

Tesla, on the other hand, has expertise in long-range batteries and this is where SpaceX benefits from all the research – and Musk has mentioned how the Dragon Space Capsule is reaping the benefits of Tesla’s battery R&D.

Other than that, Musk also feels that SpaceX needs to look at the automotive industry for inspiration because ultimately, the idea is to make passenger-savvy rockets, and perhaps later, even human colonies in space, each specifically tempered to the kind of planet they are ideated for.

All of this may sound very sci-fi and far-fetched but once, even the electric car was thought more to be a joke and a trundling alternative to gasoline-powered ones. Tesla proved people wrong. With the able guidance of Musk and his vision, we may see greater things from SpaceX as well.

For Musk, automobiles are the inspiration behind SpaceX rockets – they come cheap, can last 200,000 miles, and have airbags that deploy to save lives. This is what SpaceX rockets need to be like.

RELATED: The Real Story Behind The SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket

Transactions Between Tesla & SpaceX

Tesla's Massive New Tesla's Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg
Via Tesla

In the recent SEC filings, the role that Tesla and Space X have played in each other’s R&D has become even clearer.

For instance, SpaceX bought millions of battery components from Tesla, a whole $2.2 million of them in 2019 and 2020. Not just that, SpaceX has also bought non-battery vehicle parts and this too has been to the tune of millions – though strangely, these are car parts that most Tesla service centers would need to repair Tesla cars. SpaceX will also pay tesla another $700,000 for a “custom tool”, undefined as of yet, and this also includes the labor costs to build it. In 2019, another such system was sold by Tesla to SpaceX for $300,000.

When it comes to the opposite, SpaceX charged Tesla $200,000 for use of its private jet in the first quarter of 2020.

There’s even more publicity to be had for Tesla, especially when SpaceX owns a fleet of Tesla cars to publicly transport its astronauts and officials to important occasions, launches, and such. Tesla seems to be on the winning end of this barter, but we’re sure Musk has many more aces for SpaceX up his sleeve.

Sources: Space.com, CNBC

NEXT: These Cars Are Quintessential To Understanding The History Of EVs