Article By David Lindfield
Elon Musk has acquired a Florida-based mobile power company in a deal valued at approximately $1 billion, giving the billionaire access to a large fleet of rapidly deployable gas turbines as his artificial intelligence (AI) company expands its energy-intensive data centers.
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) records list Musk as the acquiring party and Jacksonville-based New APR Energy, LLC as the acquired company.
Neither side publicly announced the transaction, which closed on May 14.
The Jacksonville Daily Record first reported the acquisition in June before the deal attracted wider attention.
Regulatory Filing Indicates $1 Billion Valuation
The estimated value of the acquisition emerged through a separate filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Duos Technologies Group disclosed in a May 28 SEC filing that it had sold its 5% non-voting interest in New APR Energy.
Duos said the sale generated $50.4 million in net proceeds, implying that the overall transaction valued the power company at more than $1 billion.
The acquisition comes as Musk continues investing heavily in artificial intelligence through xAI, the company behind the Grok chatbot.
xAI operates the Colossus data center in Tennessee, a facility reportedly valued at $20 billion and located near a power plant site.
Musk has been forced to rent turbine units to supply the facility while waiting for additional grid power to become available.
Company Operates More Than One Gigawatt of Generation Capacity
New APR Energy owns and maintains a fleet of gas turbines capable of generating more than one gigawatt of electricity, according to a company statement issued in January.
That capacity is enough to power approximately 750,000 homes at the same time.
The company has supplied temporary and mobile power systems for more than 20 years and says its fleets can be deployed “in as little as 30 to 90 days.”
Its gas and diesel turbines were originally designed for disaster-response operations and can be transported by truck, installed, and commissioned within approximately one month.
That rapid deployment capability could provide xAI with a way to avoid the lengthy grid-connection delays facing data center operators across the country.
Musk Expands Energy Holdings
The purchase represents Musk’s second major investment in the energy industry.
In 2006, Musk helped finance SolarCity, a residential solar business founded by his cousins, Peter and Lyndon Rive.
The company became the largest residential solar installer in the United States before Tesla acquired it in a stock transaction valued at approximately $2.6 billion in 2016.
SolarCity was later incorporated into Tesla Energy.
Tech Expert Says Power Is AI’s Real Bottleneck
Tech expert and podcaster Aakash Gupta said the acquisition revealed one of the most significant constraints confronting the artificial intelligence industry.
“What [Musk] bought tells you where the real bottleneck in AI is,” Gupta wrote in a July 16 post on X.
Gupta said the mobile fleet’s ability to arrive by truck and begin producing electricity within weeks gives Musk a significant advantage as AI companies race to build larger data centers.
He pointed to the delays surrounding xAI’s first Memphis facility, where environmental groups challenged the use of turbines and the Justice Department intervened to keep the equipment operating.
“Environmental groups sued,” Gupta said.
“The [Justice Department] intervened to keep the turbines running.
“He was renting the most important input to his most important company.
“So he bought the landlord. …
“Every AI lab can buy the same chips.
“Only one of them now owns a power plant fleet that ships by truck.”
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