By Tom Ozimek
Elon Musk announced Friday that his artificial intelligence company, xAI, has acquired his social media platform X in an all-stock deal valued at $45 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 in a March 28 post on X. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”
The transaction, which includes $12 billion in debt, values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion—more than $10 billion less than what Musk paid in 2022 when he bought the company, then known as Twitter, for $44 billion.
Founded in 2023 as a rival to ChatGPT creator OpenAI, xAI has rapidly advanced with offerings like Grok, its AI chatbot, which was already tightly integrated into X prior to the acquisition. The deal now formally unites two of Musk’s most prominent ventures in a move aimed at creating a next-generation AI-powered platform.
“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,” Musk wrote. “This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.”
Musk highlighted the performance of both companies since coming under his control. He described X as a “digital town square” used by more than 600 million people and said it has become “one of the most efficient companies in the world.” Since acquiring Twitter, Musk has overhauled the platform with sweeping changes—firing top executives, cutting staff in half, and loosening content moderation to align more closely with his views on free speech.
As for xAI, Musk said it has quickly become one of the world’s leading AI labs, “building models and data centers at unprecedented speed and scale.” A major milestone in xAI’s growth was the launch of Colossus, a Memphis-based project billed as the world’s largest AI supercomputer.
Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, welcomed the announcement, posting, “The future could not be brighter.”
The acquisition follows Musk’s recent $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI—backed by xAI and a group of investors—which was ultimately rejected. That offer, according to Musk, sought to reclaim OpenAI’s original mission as a nonprofit organization focused on the public good.
Musk, an early investor and former board member at OpenAI, has since sued the company, accusing OpenAI of prioritizing profits over transparency and public interest.
In legal filings, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s attorneys described Musk’s lawsuit as a strategic ploy to use litigation for competitive advantage after failing to gain control of the company.
