In a bold manoeuvre that further blurs the lines between his tech ventures, Elon Musk has announced that his artificial intelligence company, xAI, has acquired the social media platform X in a $45 billion all-stock deal. Musk, who famously took X (formerly Twitter) private for $44 billion in 2022, now brings two of his high-profile enterprises under a single strategic vision.
“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined,” Musk declared, positioning the merger as a step toward building a vertically integrated AI and communications powerhouse. The deal will combine xAI’s models, computing infrastructure, and research capabilities with X’s vast social data, global reach, and user-generated content – ingredients Musk views as essential for advancing general-purpose AI.
The transaction, which includes $12 billion in debt, values X slightly above Musk’s original purchase price and follows a $1 billion fundraising round for the platform earlier this month. Musk said xAI is now valued at $80 billion, up from the $45 billion valuation it secured during a $5 billion funding round late last year.
While the specifics of the deal’s structure remain unclear, the implications are anything but. The fusion of AI and a social media distribution engine could give Musk a unique advantage in training models with real-time conversational data – something rivals like OpenAI, Meta, and Google can only dream of accessing at scale.
However, it will be fascinating to see how xAI handles the quality of data sourced from X. While the platform offers a vast ocean of raw, unfiltered human expression, it’s also riddled with misinformation, spam, and erratic content. Training accurate and reliable AI on such volatile material could prove both a technical and ethical minefield.
Still, in merging X and xAI, Musk isn’t just building tech – he’s constructing an empire as the world’s richest man.
