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Elon Musk said Friday that his artificial intelligence startup, xAI, had acquired his social media platform, X.
He said that the deal was an all-stock transaction that valued X at $33 billion.
“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk wrote in a post on X.
The deal combines two of Musk’s most high-profile companies, but because they are not publicly traded, no details about the deal were made public outside of Musk’s post. It’s unclear if the deal included any immediate windfall for Musk.
X recently raised $1 billion from investors, valuing it at $44 billion, according to Bloomberg. Musk took X (then Twitter) private in 2022 at nearly the same valuation. Musk was recently served with an SEC summons in the long-running lawsuit over Musk’s alleged failure to disclose his ownership in Twitter before bidding to buy it entirely.
Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, reposted Musk’s message adding: “The future could not be brighter.”
Musk launched xAI in 2023 and rolled out Grok, an AI-powered chatbot similar to those from OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and many other AI companies. Since then, Grok has been infused into X, with many users now often asking it to respond to posts and weigh in on arguments.
Musk has billed Grok as an anti-“woke” AI that is “truth-seeking,” though it has been found to disagree with him on many issues.
“This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach,” Must wrote. “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.”
Amid the broader boom in AI companies, Musk’s xAI has found interest from investors. Major Wall Street firms Blackrock, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Sequoia Capital, and the top chip companies Nvidia and AMD invested in xAI in December. That funding took the AI company’s value to $45 billion. As recently as last month, reports said xAI was considering another fundraising round that would value the company at $75 billion.
The rush to develop — and invest in — advanced AI has included billions of dollars in plans to build out the computing power, electricity infrastructure and human capital necessary to develop increasingly powerful models capable of performing complex tasks. Money has poured into AI startups while tech giants including Google, Amazon and Meta have announced plans for significant spending on all things AI.
Meanwhile, both AI and Musk have grown more political. Musk has emerged as among the most high-profile of President Donald Trump’s advisers, and Trump made AI a campaign issue, promising to rein in regulation. Just days into his second term, Trump signed an executive order aimed at undoing Biden administration efforts to put some safeguards on AI development while encouraging its growth.
Many AI and tech executives as well as technologists and industry watchdogs have warned about the implications of an all-out AI arms race, particularly as other countries including China are pushing to lead on the technology.
Jason Abbruzzese is the assistant managing editor of tech and science for NBC News Digital.
