Elon Musk announces the sale of “X” for $45 billion

In a surprising announcement, Elon Musk said that he sold social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to his AI startup firm xAI for staggering $45 billion.

The deal includes $12 billion in debt owed by X.

Following the sale, xAI, according to Musk, is now valued at $80 billion. That is double xAI’s valuation of $40 billion used in a recent funding round that raised $6 billion for the startup.

The startup was launched by the Space X owner last year.

Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers.

Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion. After taking over the social platform, he fired executives including some he was forced to rehire to keep the operation running.

After getting off to a rough start over verification checkmarks and losing some key advertisers including Apple, things have settled down. He then changed the name of the platform to X.

He added three tiers of service that start at $4 per month and run as high as $50 per month.

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. 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.”-Elon Musk

Since neither X nor xAI are publicly traded, the only information about the deal is the tweet posted by Musk.

Thus, there is no way of determining whether Elon benefits financially from the transaction.