X is sold. But Musk is still in control.
X owner Elon Musk announced late Friday that the social media site had been sold ... to xAI, Musk's own Artificial Intelligence company.
"xAI and X’s futures are intertwined," Musk posted on X. "Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent ... this will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress."
xAI purchased X in an all-stock transaction, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The AI company is now valued at $80 billion, with X valued at $33 billion, which includes $12 million in debt.
Musk purchased X, then known as Twitter, for $44 billion in October 2022.
What does this mean to the X user? Likely that AI will be integrated more fully into the X experience. The social media site has aggressively pushed its generative AI chatbot, Grok, on users since it launched in 2023. Musk also changed its terms of service shortly after the November election, requiring users to agree to have AI trained on their tweets.
In announcing the sale, Musk claimed X has 600 million "active users." He didn't say "monthly active users," which experts believe to be almost half that number.
The now-private company has shed millions of users by multiple measures since Musk's purchase, and is projected to lose millions more in 2025.
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