Bye-bye corporate conglomerates. Hello personal conglomerates.

You know how big corporations used to dominate everything, like GE or the robber barons? Well, now it looks like Elon Musk is reshaping that landscape. According to Tim De Chant writing in AI, Musk’s rumored move to merge SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla feels straight out of the Gilded Age — big, powerful, and a little bit old-school. But here’s where it gets interesting — this isn’t just about corporate power. It’s about individuals building their own personal empires, or what some are calling ‘personal conglomerates.’ As De Chant points out, these aren’t just companies anymore — they’re extensions of your identity, your tech, your influence. So what does this mean for us? The lines between personal and corporate are blurring fast. And get this — if individuals start wielding this kind of power, the game changes completely. The age of big, unwieldy corporations might be giving way to something more personal, more flexible, and honestly, a lot more unpredictable.