Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI has acquired Musk's social media platform X.

The generative AI business bought the company formerly known as Twitter for $33bn in an all-stock deal.

“The combination values xAI at $80bn and X at $33bn ($45bn less $12bn debt)," Musk said on X. “xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution, and talent.”

Musk acquired Twitter for $44bn in 2022, in a controversial deal that he unsuccessfully sued to not have to close. As part of the transaction, he brought on $13bn in debt.

The company's value soon plummeted amid mass layoffs, advertiser boycotts, and a user exodus.

Musk then founded xAI in March 2023, raising billions to develop an OpenAI competitor (a company that he is also suing). The startup has used X data and data centers, as well as integrated its Grok model into X feeds.

Musk also promised that X investors would get 25 percent of xAI, helping bolster its valuation.

After being worth less than $10bn in September 2024, X rebounded in value to $44bn earlier this month, partially thanks to Musk's influence in the White House.

“Some of the spending growth is really being driven by fear as we’ve seen some of the big advertisers return in an effort to curry favor with the Trump administration,” Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Emarketer, told Bloomberg.

X is estimated to generate $2.26 billion in global ad sales this year, up 16.5 percent over last year, but still below the $4.5bn it made in 2021, its final full year as a public company.

With debt included, the xAI deal now values X at $45bn, which analysts note was likely not a coincidence. "It is $1 billion higher than the take-private transaction for Twitter in 2022," D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria told Reuters.

Musk did not ask investors for approval to make the acquisition.