Musk's xAI buys social media platform X for $45 billion

[demmiblue]

Source: Reuters

March 28 (Reuters) - Elon Musk said on Friday that his xAI has acquired X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter, in an all-stock transaction for $45 billion, including debt.

"xAI and X's futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent," Musk said in a post on X, adding that the combined company would be valued at $80 billion.

The billionaire's AI startup, which was launched in 2023, recently raised $6 billion from investors at a valuation of $40 billion, sources have told Reuters.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/musks-xai-buys-social-media-platform-x-45-billion-2025-03-28/

[UpInArms]

1. Worth $80 billion

[sinkingfeeling]

8. I wouldn't pay $8 for both of them.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Financial engineering

Probably hiding something bad. Screwing over prior investors?

[OAITW r.2.0]

14. I think Elon bought X from his own funds...I think $44BB?

Now he's selling it to another corporation he controls....but they own the platform now and he gets his personal money (plus a 1BB more) out.

[Eugene]

24. No, he didn't. Xitter owes billions to banks with a huge payment due.

There were also substantial investment from the Saudis and billionaires like Larry Ellison. He broke promises to Tesla investors by selling substantial amounts of Tesla stock, and substantial funds were borrowed from SpaceX.

Elon Musk's cash comes from borrowing against the value of his Tesla stock, pumped up by investor's money. xAI is the latest gimmick to hustle new investor's money, which will now bail out another one of his ventures.

Financial engineering that would make Charles Ponzi proud.

[OAITW r.2.0]

25. Thanks for setting me straight on that.

[Red Mountain]

3. How long before it buys TSLA?

At what inflated value?

I hope anybody who doesn't have the money to lose gets away from the Musk companies sooner rather than later.

[John1956PA]

4. I think the computer systems for xAI are located in Kentucky. Musk wants to use xAI to house all of our government data.

He wants to transfer SSA data to xAI. It is part of his plan to keeps tabs on everyone. And yet, 98% of the GOP approve of Trump giving Musk such power over all of us.

[Lovie777]

5. AI flipping votes.................

[Think. Again.]

12. Bingo.

[Midnight Writer]

6. If xAI is being trained using input from X, then it is garbage. Garbage in, garbage out shall be the whole of the law.

[Voltaire2]

7. Self dealing bullshit.

Tesla stock is tanking and it is the collateral backing the money he borrowed to purchase Twitter. Twitter wasn’t worth 45B then and it is likely worth about 1/3 of that now.

[tanyev]

9. 😒

[BobsYourUncle]

10. I'm no major player in the market, BUT

my first thought on reading the OP was
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

Elon, me thinks, is an expert on Ponzi scheming!

[mathematic]

11. xAI investors finding out they just bailed out Musk by buying twitter for $40B, tens of billions more than it was worth

Of course if there were shenanigans in this deal it's not like there's anybody that's going to investigate.

[Think. Again.]

13. I guess he can hide the actual value of x by paying whatever he wants for it.

He had xai buy x with all xai stock, so now x basically owns xai because x owns all of xai's stock, although xai owns x on paper, and the total value of the two combined isn't the sum of both the sale price and the value of the stock used to buy x (80B), it's only the value of the xai stockstock (40B) because that's the only tangible thing of value left after this deal, and x owns that.

So, x owns 40B of xai stock, making x's assets worth 40B, but xai doesn't own any assets except the same 40B of xai stock because it owns x's assets.

[highplainsdem]

15. From tech journalist/editor Casey Newton on Bluesky:

https://bsky.app/profile/caseynewton.bsky.social/post/3llhrnz5klc2v

Casey Newton
‪@caseynewton.bsky.social‬

It has long been clear that this was X’s final destination … as the data generation arm of a slop factory

[BootinUp]

16. It will just be another boondoggle. nt

[LudwigPastorius]

17. ...and in the end the investors will be left holding bags of AI-generated dog turds.

[Prairie Gates]

18. Imagine some schlub i n south central PA who gets up and works everyday for

$45,000 a year supporting this mental defective con artist throwing billions around for a completely moronic social media platform.

So fucking pathetic and sad.

[JoseBalow]

19. Shenanigans

[NBachers]

20. So if I use all my own money to buy all my own money, does that mean that I now have twice as much of my own money??

[Nululu]

21. Fidelity valued twitter ar 9billion

Others circling to buy it from banks that loaned him the money. A method to stave off debt collection or auction.

[DetlefK]

22. Sell your own company worth $10B to yourself for $45B and it becomes worth $45B.

Twitter is not worth $45B.
Twitter was worth $10B when Musk got himself sued into buying it for the $45B he had floated publicly to game the market.

And what exactly has Musk changed at Twitter, so that it would actually be worth those $45B?

[angryxyouth]

23. Abracadabra $80 billion

Didn’t banks write down at a loss $5.5 billion but still hold $13 billion. I’m sure the banks will be paid back fairly after this deal.🤪

[eppur_se_muova]

26. "Compute" is a noun now ? It's so hard to keep up with the degradation of literacy. nt