X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, has been sold.
Elon Musk said Friday that xAI, his artificial intelligence company, had acquired X in an all-stock transaction that values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45 billion, his original take-private price, minus $12 billion in debt).
That’s $1 billion more than the take-private price of $44 billion in 2022.
“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.”
Musk, of course, is also the CEO and largest shareholder of Tesla, and the CEO of the space company (and burgeoning telecom giant) SpaceX. It is not immediately clear what the deal means for X’s consumer-facing product, or for staff there like X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who is a veteran of the TV business.
Yaccarino added in a post, “@X + @xAI The future could not be brighter.”
