Elon Musk has announced the sale of his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, to his artificial intelligence company xAI in an all-stock transaction valued at $33 billion (€30.5 billion).
Musk, who acquired Twitter over two years ago and rebranded it as X, stated that the deal integrates the operations of both companies while keeping them privately held, thereby avoiding public financial disclosures.
In a post on X, Musk explained that the “combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt).”
He elaborated on the significance of the move, saying, “Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at unprecedented speed and scale.”
Describing X’s evolution under his leadership, he added, “X is the digital town square where more than 600M active users go to find the real-time source of ground truth, and in the last two years, has been transformed into one of the most efficient companies in the world, positioning it to deliver scalable future growth.”
Musk emphasized that the integration of xAI and X would create new opportunities by combining their respective strengths.
“Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution, and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach,” he stated.
He further explained, “The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.”
Musk initially acquired Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion (€40 billion) and has since implemented major changes, including workforce reductions, adjustments to content moderation policies, and the platform’s rebranding.
Following this, he founded xAI, which has quickly become a major player in the artificial intelligence sector.
In December, Musk revealed plans to expand xAI’s supercomputer, ‘Colossus,’ to compete with industry leaders like OpenAI, increasing the number of GPUs to accelerate AI model development.
The future implications of the deal for X users remain uncertain.
Currently, xAI utilizes data from X user posts to train its AI models, while premium X subscribers have access to its AI chatbot, Grok.
