• Elon Musk Says xAI Has Purchased X, Formerly Known As Twitter, For $33

    From slothe@21:1/5 to All on Mon Mar 31 21:59:58 2025
    XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns, sac.politics

    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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