Musk Sells X To xAI, OpenAI’s For-Profit Switch & Art Concerns, Zhipu AI's Free AI Agent & More

Elon Musk officially acquired Twitter in October 2022 for $44 billion, paying $54.20 per Twitter share while financing the deal using debt.

However, it was only clarified that Twitter "merged into X Corp. and no longer exists” on April 4, 2023. Yet, the social media platform didn’t get renamed to X until July 23, 2023, and finally saw the domain name change from twitter.com to x.com.

All these moves came as Musk planned to build a super app. A super app is a centralized platform offering numerous functions, from payments to social networking, e-commerce to transportation, all on a single platform.

Now, Musk just announced the company’s next big move towards this dream—one that will alter its future (but not really).

Elon Musk’s X has been acquired by Elon Musk’s xAI.

Same same—but different—but still same

As per Musk’s post on X, “@xAI has acquired @X in an all-stock transaction,” where the deal values X at $33 billion ($45 billion less $12 billion debt). Musk bought it for $44 billion.

The deal also raises the value of xAI to $80 billion and is expected to bring xAI’s AI assistant—Grok—better training data, albeit the two companies were already collaborating with Grok training on content from X. Currently, Grok is available to “more than 600 million active” X users, where paying subscribers are offered more features and higher usage limits.

“The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences,” allowing the companies to “build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.”

Musk added, “xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution, and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”


Presently, the specifics of the deal remain unclear, including how X’s leaders would be integrated and if there would be regulatory scrutiny.

Speaking about legal scrutiny, U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter (Manhattan) rejected a bid by Elon Musk to dismiss a lawsuit claiming he defrauded former Twitter shareholders by waiting too long to disclose his initial investment in Twitter. The shareholders pleaded that Musk intended to commit fraud through an improper regulatory filing and misleading tweets about the company’s future.

Elon Musk has also been on the warpath to destabilize xAI rival OpenAI—makers of ChatGPT—by trying to stop the company from transitioning to a for-profit company and even launching a (meme-worthy) takeover bid. However, Sam Altman blatantly refused the acquisition offer, counteroffering $9.74 billion for X.

As for OpenAI’s long-awaited for-profit move, a U.S. court rejected Musk’s request for a preliminary injunction, citing he hadn’t “demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits” of his claims. It also dismissed several of his claims from the case entirely.

As for its for-profit aspirations, OpenAI must transition by the end of the year to secure the full $40 billion funding led by SoftBank in the final stages of raising, according to a person familiar with the matter. Essentially, it would have to shorten its original two-year deadline from its last financing round.

If the company fails to transition, SoftBank can revise its investment to $20 billion.

OpenAI has had a colorful few days, especially since it launched 4o Image Generation, which saw the integration of its most advanced image generator yet into GPT‑4o.


In less than 24 hours of this release, social media platforms were flooded with AI-generated art mimicking the beloved style of Studio Ghibli, even giving rise to a new trend. However, it also raised more legal and ethical questions about the use of copyrighted material by AI (artificial intelligence) companies.

Either way, the trend saw a massive influx of users flocking to ChatGPT, leading to alarming concerns for OpenAI too and CEO Sam Altman claiming it's leading to melting GPUs.

“It's super fun seeing people love images in ChatGPT. But our GPUs are melting. We are going to temporarily introduce some rate limits while we work on making it more efficient. Hopefully [it] won't be long! ChatGPT free tier will get 3 generations per day soon,” said Altman in one post on X. Currently, the free tier gets 1 generation per day.

In another post, Altman requested, “Can y'all please chill on generating images this is insane our team needs sleep.”

On the other hand, Studio Ghibli’s co-founder, Hayao Miyazaki, has voiced his dissatisfaction with AI, even calling it an “insult to life itself” in a 2016 documentary.

While two of the biggest AI companies in the United States are fighting, China’s Zhipu AI recently unveiled a free AI agent, adding to the increasing pressure between the two competing countries. This builds on the DeepSeek and Manus craze.

Called AutoGLM Rumination, the tool is powered by Zhipu's proprietary models—reasoning model GLM-Z1-Air and foundation model GLM-4-Air-0414—and can perform deep research and execute tasks such as web searches, travel planning, research report writing, and more.

Do you think U.S.-based AI companies can be overtaken by Chinese counterparts? Do you think xAI’s acquisition of X and OpenAI’s new image model’s virality can help it retain a leading position in the AI industry?

Let us know in the comments below!