Elon Musk’s xAI buys social media platform X for US$33 billion
The tech billionaire plans to combine the ‘data, models, compute, distribution and talent’ from the app and start-up
Elon Musk’s xAI artificial intelligence firm has acquired Musk’s X, the social media outfit formerly known as Twitter, for US$33 billion.
The all-stock deal announced on Friday consolidates two of Musk’s multiple portfolio companies, which also include Tesla and SpaceX, and potentially eases the billionaire’s ability to train his AI model known as Grok. Including US$12 billion in debt, the deal is valued at US$45 billion.
“The choice of US$45 billion is not a coincidence,” said D.A. Davidson & Co. analyst Gil Luria. “It is US$1 billion higher than the take-private transaction for Twitter in 2022” and he can share the value of the xAI business with Twitter co-investors.
Musk announced the transaction in a post on social media, saying that the combined entity would be valued at US$80 billion.
“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined,” Musk said. “Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent.”
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Neither X nor xAI spokespersons immediately responded to a request for comment. Some of the deal’s specifics were not yet clear, such as whether investors approved the transaction or how investors may be compensated.