Elon Musk’s AI startup acquires X in deal that values social media platform at $33 billion

Elon Musk said Friday that his AI startup, xAI, had acquired his social media platform, X.

Musk said that the deal was an all-stock transaction that valued X at $33 billion.

« xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent, » Musk wrote.

X recently raised $1 billion from investors, valuing it at $44 billion, according to Bloomberg. Musk took X (then Twitter) private in 2022 at nearly the same valuation.

Musk launched xAI in 2023 and rolled out Grok, an AI-powered chatbot similar to those from OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and many other AI companies. Since then, Grok has been infused into X, with many users now often asking it to respond to posts and weigh in on arguments.

Musk has billed Grok as an anti-« woke » AI that is « truth-seeking, » though it has been found to disagree with him on many issues.

« This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach, » Must wrote. « The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress. »

Amid the broader boom in AI companies, Musk’s xAI has found interest from investors. Major Wall Street firms Blackrock, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Sequoia Capital, and the top chip companies Nvidia and AMD invested in xAI in December. That funding took the AI company’s value to $45 billion. As recently as last month, reports said xAI was considering another fundraising round that would value the company at $75 billion.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.