Elon Musk says xAI acquired X

Summary

Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has acquired his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, in an all-stock deal, he announced in a post on X Friday. “xAI has acquired X in an all-stock transaction,” Musk said. “The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt).” Musk went on to describe the two companies’ futures as “intertwined.” He added, “Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent.” The acquisition places X — the highly influential social media platform Musk purchased in 2022 under its former name, Twitter — firmly under the umbrella of Musk’s AI startup, which he founded in 2023 to compete with OpenAI. While xAI’s products, including its AI chatbot Grok, were tightly integrated into the X platform before this deal, Friday’s acquisition further combines two of Musk’s most high-profile companies. According to publications including The Wall Street Journal, shares of X and xAI will be exchanged for shares of a new holding company called xAI Holdings Corp. The WSJ also reports that executives at both companies believed that it would be easier to raise money for a combined entity. Musk — who also leads Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink — notes in his post that this deal values X at $33 billion (lowered from an enterprise value of $45 billion due to the company’s $12 billion in debt). Musk originally purchased X for $44 billion in October 2022 and took it private. However, the valuation has swung dramatically in recent years. At one point, Fidelity valued X at less than $10 billion. In the months since the inauguration of President Donald Trump — for whom Musk aggressively campaigned and for whom Musk now serves under as a special adviser leading DOGE — X’s valuation has risen, largely because investors believe the platform more influential now. Musk said in his post on Friday that X has more than 600 million active users. Musk launched xAI in 2023 and has since beefed up the st...