- The sale has created a merged entity worth $113 billion
- Combined companies will help “accelerate human progress”
- X has over 600M active users
Elon Musk has sold X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, to Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI. Well, sort of.
In an announcement on…X, Musk said xAI had acquired the platform in an all-stock transaction that values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45 billion buyout price minus $12 billion debt).
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The sale has created a merged entity worth $113 billion, valuing X at $45 billion – $1 billion more than its $44 billion buyout price in 2022, which Musk paid before taking it private.
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The richest person in the world said “xAI and X’s futures are intertwined” and that the “combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach”.
He added that “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.”
What does this mean for X?
It is not immediately clear what the merger means for the future of X, or for its staff. X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who worked at Turner Entertainment for 15 years added in a post, “@X + @xAI The future could not be brighter.”
X users are already questioning what changes might be in store for them. @MilaLovesJoe commented “Holy crap. Huge news! What does it mean for the X users and creators? Whats changing?”
While others took the opportunity to make light of the news:
Musk is of course the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, but also the head of President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. His 219 million followers on X help amplify the messages of the Trump White House.
When he acquired Twitter in October 2022, he implemented several significant changes. He introduced a more relaxed approach to content moderation, but also made cuts to the workforce, laying off a large portion of Twitter’s staff. He revamped the platform’s subscription model, introducing Twitter Blue with new features like verification for paying users. Additionally, he rebranded Twitter to X in July 2023, signaling his vision to transform the platform into “the everything app.”
Musk said that in the last two years X “has been transformed into one of the most efficient companies in the world” and has over 600M active users. He branded it “the digital town square”, where users “go to find the real-time source of ground truth”.
Elon Musk vows to accelerate human progress
Tech giants like OpenAI, Meta Platforms, Amazon, Alphabet, and Nvidia have invested tens of billions of dollars in language models and AI software. In comparison, xAI has yet to make a significant impact.
However, the integration of xAI’s Grok chatbot into the X platform signals the growing connection between the two companies following their merger. As Musk puts it, this merger “will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.” He also expressed appreciation for the “hardcore dedication” of those at xAI and X, noting, “This is just the beginning.”
