Elon Musk's AI company acquires his X social media platform in $33 billion deal
Elon Musk has announced the sale of his social media platform X to his artificial intelligence company, xAI, in a transaction valued at $33 billion plus $12 billion in debt. This move comes after Musk's purchase of Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, which he subsequently took private and rebranded as X in July 2023. X boasts approximately 611 million monthly active users worldwide.
"xAI and X's futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent," Musk wrote on X. "This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI's advanced AI capability and expertise with X's massive reach. 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." xAI is now valued at $80 billion.
Company Background
Both xAI and X are headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area. Musk founded xAI in March 2023 with the goal of using artificial intelligence to understand and generate human-like text. The company aims to "understand reality," as mentioned in a post on Twitter.
X currently has around 1,500 employees, a significant decrease from the approximately 7,500 employees before Musk's acquisition. On the other hand, xAI has about 1,000 workers and offers products such as Grok, Aurora, and PromptlDE.
Future Endeavors
In February, investors led by Musk proposed a $97.4 billion takeover of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT. Musk emphasized the importance of OpenAI returning to its roots as an open-source, safety-focused organization. This sentiment was met with a counteroffer from OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, who expressed interest in purchasing Twitter for $9.74 billion.
Musk, with a net worth of $347.7 billion, is a prominent figure as the largest shareholder of Tesla and the CEO of SpaceX. Additionally, he oversees the Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to reduce government spending significantly.
