Tech billionaire Elon Musk's xAI artificial intelligence firm has acquired his social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, for $33 billion (€30.5 billion).

Musk announced the transaction in a post on X, saying: "The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt)."

What did Musk say about the deal?

"xAI and X's futures are intertwined," he wrote. "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."

Much of the deal's specifics remained unclear. Both companies are privately held, so they are not required to disclose their finances to the public.

It's also not clear if the move will change anything for X users.

Musk bought X, then called Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022.

Following the acquisition, he fired most of its staff and changed its policies on content moderation and user verification, and renamed it X. The controversial content policies prompted advertisers to flee the platform and caused a rapid decline in revenue.

Intensifying AI competition 

Musk launched xAI a year later.

In February, xAI introduced Grok-3, the latest iteration of its chatbot, as it tries to compete with Chinese AI firm DeepSeek and Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.

Amid intensifying competition in AI space, xAI has also been ramping up its data center capacity to train more advanced models.

Musk also made a $97.4 billion attempt with a consortium to acquire OpenAI in February.

But the bid was rejected.

Musk, the world's wealthiest man who serves as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has become a powerful figure in Washington since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

He is overseeing the administration's cost-cutting efforts as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Edited by: John Silk