X is sold. But Musk is still in control.

The billionaire's AI company is the new owner of the legendary, if diminished, social media site.
By
Neal Broverman
 on 
Elon Musk sold X to another one of his companies.
Elon Musk sold X to another one of his companies. Credit: Photo Illustration by Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

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.

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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.

This story is developing...

Neal Broverman
Neal Broverman
Enterprise Editor

Neal joined Mashable’s Social Good team in 2024, editing and writing stories about digital culture and its effects on the environment and marginalized communities. He is the former editorial director of The Advocate and Out magazines, has contributed to the Los Angeles Times, Curbed, and Los Angeles magazine, and is a recipient of the Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for LGBTQ Journalist of the Year Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association (NLGJA). He lives in Los Angeles with his family.


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