Elon Musk announced Friday that his xAI company acquired X in a deal that values the social media platform at $33 billion and allows the value of his artificial intelligence firm to be shared with his co-investors in the company formerly known as Twitter.
The deal could also help xAI’s ability to train its chatbot known as Grok.
“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined,” Musk, who also heads automaker Tesla and SpaceX, wrote in a post on X: “Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent.”
He said the combination values “xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt).”
Representatives for X and xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Much of the deal’s specifics remain unclear, such as how X’s leaders would be integrated into the new firm or whether there would be regulatory scrutiny.
It’s not clear if the move will change anything for X users — xAI already uses data from X user posts to train its artificial intelligence models and paying X users have access to its AI chatbot, Grok, while nonpaying users can ask the chatbot 10 questions every two hours.
Musk, who serves as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as advising President Donald Trump, bought the site, then called Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022, gutted its staff and changed its policies on hate speech, misinformation and user verification and renamed it X.
Saudi Arabian investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who owns the investment company Kingdom Holding, said he had requested the development.
He noted his companies are the second-largest investors in X and xAI. “After this deal, the value of our investments is expected to reach between $4-$5 billion… and the meter is running,” he said in a post on X.
D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said the price tag of $45 billion, when debt was included, was not a coincidence. “It is $1 billion higher than the take-private transaction for Twitter in 2022.”
An investor in xAI who declined to be identified said they are not surprised by the deal, viewing it as Musk consolidating his leadership and management at his own companies.
Musk did not ask investors for approval but told them that the two companies had been collaborating closely and the deal would drive deeper integration with Grok, the investor says.