Elon Musk is considering a purchase of Mesh Optical Technologies, a startup established last year by three ex-SpaceX engineers focused on creating hardware for rapid data center communications.

The prospective acquisition, disclosed in a Federal Trade Commission filing and initially reported by Bloomberg, confirmed that the agency accelerated its antitrust investigation.

Mesh Optical emerged from stealth mode in February when it announced a successful $50 million Series A funding round led by Thrive Capital.

Prior to launching Mesh Optical, the co-founders, Travis Brashears, Cameron Ramos, and Serena Grown-Haeberli, engineered the optical communication links that maintain connectivity among thousands of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.

The co-founders of Mesh recognized a chance to create optical transceivers for ground-based data centers, as light-based technology is quicker and more energy-efficient compared to conventional electrical systems.

Recently, SpaceX has formed partnerships with Anthropic, Google, and the open-source AI company Reflection AI to supply them with computing power from its data centers, creating a significant new income stream for the publicly traded firm. Acquiring Mesh may eventually enable SpaceX to enhance the effectiveness of its data centers, whether situated on Earth or, in the future, in outer space.