In a consolidation of his tech companies, X proprietor Elon Musk mentioned in a put up on Friday that xAI, the builders of Grok, had acquired X (previously Twitter) in an all-stock transaction. In keeping with Musk, the merger values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion.
Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in April 2022. By October 2024, Constancy Investments adjusted the valuation of its stake in X, estimating the corporate’s general worth to be roughly $9.4 billion.
Although its valuation had recovered considerably by December 2024, it was nonetheless down a whopping 77% from Musk’s buy worth. How Musk arrived at a $33 billion valuation, in different phrases, would make for attention-grabbing studying.
Already the top of a number of firms, together with SpaceX and Tesla, Musk launched xAI in July 2023, a yr after buying Twitter. Whereas he mentioned the purpose of xAI was to “perceive actuality,” an ongoing feud with former enterprise companion OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was additionally a driving issue.
“At this time, we formally take the step to mix the information, fashions, compute, distribution, and expertise. This mixture will unlock immense potential by mixing xAI’s superior AI functionality and experience with X’s huge attain,” Musk wrote on X Friday. “The mixed firm will ship smarter, extra significant experiences to billions of individuals whereas staying true to our core mission of searching for fact and advancing information.”
Calling X “the digital city sq.,” Musk mentioned the platform boasted over 600 million energetic customers. Nevertheless, Meta, which launched a rival social media platform, Threads, in July 2023, and Bluesky, which launched in February of that yr, have been attempting to woo away customers.
Bluesky’s person depend surpassed 27.44 million customers in January 2025, a lot of whom had left Twitter after Musk’s takeover. On the identical time, bolstered by its connections to Fb and Instagram, Threads had over 320 million month-to-month energetic customers as of February 2025.
Musk made headlines in July of final yr when it was revealed that Grok can be educated on X person knowledge. The setting could be disabled, however is on by default for person accounts.
Some social media customers jeered at this time’s announcement, mocking the apparently sizable valuation increase in a deal between two of Musk’s personal firms.
“I additionally offered my 2008 Honda Accord to myself for $1 million,” New York Instances tech reporter Ryan Mac mentioned on Bluesky.
“Wait a min…what’s totally different although… apart from on paper?” an X person requested.
The merger, nonetheless, may serve a extra pragmatic objective. With X nonetheless carrying vital debt—$12 billion, in accordance with Musk’s tweet—folding it into the xAI umbrella may give the corporate entry to new traders, improved valuation, and a story pivot away from Twitter’s chaotic takeover.
“This may enable us to construct a platform that doesn’t simply mirror the world however actively accelerates human progress,” he mentioned.
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