In 2022, Elon Musk wrote a check for $44 billion to buy the old Twitter and reshape the social network in his own image. Surprise this Friday evening: the same Elon Musk announced that xAI, his artificial intelligence startup, had bought what became X. A transaction that increases the social network's value $33 billion (or $45 billion including debt).
OpenAI in the Crosshairs
After a series of changes that caused many users to flee to Threads or Bluesky, Twitter's valuation plunged before rebounding, following the billionaire's support for Donald Trump. Advertisers, who had fled the platform following the owner's antics and the hate speech that proliferated there, have quietly returned to get in the good books of the White House's closest advisor.
The new entity, called XAI Holdings, has a valuation of $100 billion (without debt). This merger will allow the merger of data, models, computing capabilities, and talent from both companies, as Elon Musk explains. It also strengthens the position of Grok, xAI's chatbot, which benefits from data from X. According to the businessman, this integration will unlock "immense potential."
Can this new entity really rise to the level of its arch-rival OpenAI? xAI will have free rein to harvest content broadcast on X/Twitter, even if, in practice, the training of Grok's AI model was already based on largely on tweets from social network users.
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