Elon Musk Sells X/Twitter to Himself in a $33 Billion Deal
How Elon Musk is redefining the AI race by betting on data
Welcome to another edition of AI 101, where every Wednesday we bring you the biggest AI update of the week.
This Week’s Update: Elon Musk’s AI Startup, xAI, Acquires His Social Media Platform X
On March 28th, xAI completed a $33 billion all-stock acquisition of X (formerly Twitter). Elon Musk, who owns both companies, stated, “Today, we officially take the step to combine the [two businesses’] data, models, compute, distribution, and talent.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, shares of both companies will be exchanged for shares of a new holding company called xAI Holding Corp. xAI has emerged as a key player in the AI industry, with the release of its Grok 3 model in February proving to be a strong competitor against chatbots from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
Why This Is Important
This acquisition gives xAI a unique advantage over its competitors: exclusive access to X’s real-time, proprietary data. Although the AI company has used content from X to train its models in the past, the acquisition removes any remaining barriers preventing xAI from accessing the platform’s user data. The move also further integrates xAI’s products with the social media network to create a unified platform. This integration is a step towards building Musk’s “everything app” to compete with other tech giants like Google and Meta.
Quick Hits:
On Monday, OpenAI reported it had completed a round of funding that raises the company’s valuation to $300 billion, double what it was just six months ago.
Isomorphic Labs, a Google-owned drug company that uses AI to develop treatments, announced on Monday that it had raised $600 million.