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Topline Elon Musk said Friday his artificial intelligence startup, xAI,
has acquired his social media platform, X, for $33 billion in an all-stock transaction.
Musk announced the deal in a Friday post, saying it valued xAI at $80
billion and X at $33 billion, or $45 billion if the social network’s $12 billion in debt is included.
Musk, who purchased X for $44 billion in 2022, when it was known as
Twitter, said the acquisition entails the combination of xAI and X’s
“data, models, compute, distribution and talent.”
The two Musk-owned companies already have plenty of overlap, with X’s AI chatbot, Grok, being developed by xAI, and all xAI staffers being X
employees, at least on paper, according to The Verge.
An $80 billion valuation for xAI places it somewhat closer to rival AI
company OpenAI, which is currently valued at $157 billion and is close to finalizing a SoftBank-led funding round that will boost its valuation to a whopping $300 billion, according to Bloomberg.
We estimate Musk’s net worth at $342.9 billion, making him the wealthiest person in the world and placing him well ahead of Amazon co-founder Jeff
Bezos’ and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s new worths, which are $209.2 billion
and $199.5 billion, respectively.
Key Background
Musk overhauled the brand of Twitter after buying it for $44 billion about three years ago, renaming the platform X, introducing changes to its
policies and features and slashing 80% of the company’s workforce. A year
after Musk’s takeover, X suffered from an advertiser exodus and a massive reduction in value, with its valuation dropping to $16.9 billion. The
fleeing of advertisers was triggered after Musk approved of an antisemitic tweet and then claimed advertisers who were “blackmailing” him with money should “go f*** themselves.” Since then, Musk has become one of President Donald Trump’s largest backers and closest advisers, using the social
platform to boost his increasingly right-wing politics. X is poised to
record its first year of ad revenue growth since Musk purchased the
platform and is projected to generate $1.3 billion in U.S. advertising
sales this year, Bloomberg reported, citing research firm Emarketer.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/03/28/elon-musk-says- xai-has-purchased-x-formerly-known-as-twitter-for-33-billion/
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