Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced on Friday that he is selling social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, to his own artificial intelligence startup xAI.
Musk confirmed the news via a post on X, saying that it was an all-stock transaction, which valued xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion. He stated that X’s full value was $45 billion before being lowered by $12 billion in debt.
“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk added. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”
xAI was founded in 2023 by Musk as a competitor to ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. The company’s flagship product is the AI assistant Grok, which has been integrated into X since its inception. xAI had its latest funding round in December when it raised $6 billion and reached a valuation of $45 billion.
Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, paying $44 billion for the social media platform. He introduced a series of changes to the platform, including changing its name to X, while also making a series of job cuts. The company’s valuation dropped to $10 billion in September according to a report by Fidelity Investments, but apparently saw a massive turnaround since then.