Elon Musk Unexpectedly Sold His X Platform to Himself and Merged It With xAI

Just when you thought Elon Musk might have been done buying new companies to add to his portfolio, he bought another one — X, which is, of course, formerly Twitter. Well, he bought it from himself, anyway, through shared stocks worth billions of dollars. But why did Elon Musk sell X to himself? With everything else he has under his belt, including being a special advisor to Donald Trump, people are more confused than ever about the billionaire’s business moves.

Seemingly behind the scenes and quietly, Musk sold his social media platform to himself in order to officially merge X with his other company, xAI. The latter is a corporation with a focus on artificial intelligence. While it’s unclear how Musk plans to use AI and X, what many are most confused and curious about is why he bought and sold X to himself in the first place.

On March 28, 2025, Musk shared a post on X where he announced selling the platform, which he purchased for the first time in 2022. In his post, he wrote that both X and xAI were already set to be combined at some point, and when he used an "all-stock transaction" to make that happen, it was to "combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent" of both.

"This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach," Musk wrote in his lengthy post. "The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress."

Outside of that, he didn't explain why it was so crucial to the future of both X and xAI for xAI to acquire X and combine the two companies. It could be a way to add more AI technology to X in an official capacity. Or, it could be part of a plan to intertwine more of Musk’s companies. One user theorized on YouTube that it might just "make sense" if, as Musk wrote on X, the two are already so enmeshed with one another.

Outside of X and xAI, Musk has his hands full with other companies. He also owns Space Exploration Technologies Corp., otherwise known as SpaceX, which is dedicated to space technology and travel. Then there’s Tesla, his automotive company, and Neuralink, which, according to its website, focuses on creating an implant to give people the "ability to control their computers and mobile devices with their thoughts."

In 2017, Musk also founded The Boring Company, a tunnel construction company that is linked to SpaceX. It's unclear, however, if Musk has plans to somehow combine all of his companies as he did with X and xAI.