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xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

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Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nice bank you've got there. Would be a shame if ________" (Insert any number of orders that Musk can have his friends in the executive branch issue to make life miserable for the bank principals.) It's good to be the king. Even better to own him.

That makes me think of Jakob Fugger. He was so rich the pope borrowed money from him to build St. Peter's Basilica. And they got so desperate to pay it back they started selling indulgences, pissing off one Martin Luther and creating Protestantism: https://theconversation.com/the-man-who-gave-us-the-reformat...

And that makes me think of the Knights Templar. They were so rich that everybody borrowed money from them. The one day, the King of France decided he didn't want to repay the loan. The story doesn't end well for the Templars.

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solar city acquisition was for "only" $2.6 billion. This deal is way bigger. I'm not sure what the Tesla valuation was at the time of that deal, but I have to imagine it's proportionally way bigger too. A $45 billion acquisition when the acquirer, xAI, has an $80 billion valuation will threaten the integrity of xAI. Particularly because that's just a paper valuation and xAI doesn't have much of any revenue. If I…

Just keep in mind this is all funny money ! The valuation of those 2 companies combined should be X is heavily in debt, diminishing user base, and bleeding money. 0 profits xAI is yet to make any actual revenues outside of ... X. Also bleeding money Although I would admit, that these companies are not valued based by their economics, but rather on political power they provide to the owner.

As best I can tell the deal includes paying off $12 billion of Twitter debt. So that's real money, though that seems like it's basically all of the cash that xAI has raised, so if that's the case that's pretty wild.

Edit: I misread, Musk said it's an all-stock deal, so you're right, it's all funny money. I think that means the combined entity is taking on that debt. It's still great for Twitter and bad for xAI investors because the combined entity now has both the $12 billion debt and all the VC xAI raised.

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#273
post #12

I get a kick out of how the link in this story is "twitter.com" instead of "x.com". Personally, I think everyone should just continue to say "Twitter."

I do and I always will. I refuse to play along with corporate rebrands, be it Twitter, Facebook, Comcast, Charter or anything else.

FYI; Comcast is a corporate rebrand of American Cable Systems

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I argue that he's literally showing us how high we can go with SpaceX.

In what way though? I’ve yet to see anything that rivals any accomplishments by NASA. Or were you being punny?

No, you're right. NASA has already shown that we can go past our solar system, so... His company has done some really awesome stuff with the ships/rockets, though.

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#275
post #135

Who is he going to merge the US with after he fucks that up?

Canada and Greenland

Russian joke:

>Trump, in the afterlife, gets permission to go back and visit Earth for one hour. He goes into a bar in NYC and asks the bartender how things are going for America. The amazed man says, "Wow, sir, we have the most incredible empire thanks to you! Greenland, Panama, and Canada!" "That's great," says Trump, "What about Europe?" "Oh yes," says the bartender, "They also couldn't resist us!" "That's so beautiful," says Trump. "Well, I have to go back now, how much do I owe you?" "One ruble and fifty kopeks," replies the bartender.

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I argue that he's literally showing us how high we can go with SpaceX.

In what way though? I’ve yet to see anything that rivals any accomplishments by NASA. Or were you being punny?

Did you not watch them land the starship? That's easily the biggest space-faring accomplishment since Apollo, and certainly not something NASA could replicate in the foreseeable future.

Speaking of the moon, NASA's SLS is projected to cost several orders of magnitude more than a super heavy launch, and is only aiming for the moon as opposed to Mars.

If there's one place that Doge could really, actually stop a lot of waste and fraud, it's at NASA. Of course, that would be the conflict of interest par excellence, and face a bunch of opposition from red-state congressmen with huge contracts in their constituencies. Objectively speaking, though, it's a huge waste of taxpayer money.

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Optimistically speaking it could happen as soon as after Nov of 2026 (midterms). The midterms could have some meaningful effect a lot sooner than that if we start seeing across-the-board primary challenges of pro-Trump Republicans. Of course, all of this is assuming that the broad Republican constituency have to some extent gone anti-Trump, and I really don't know how much basis there is for that assumption.

More likely is that competitive districts flip blue. Republican primary voters don’t seem to be upset. They’re getting what they wanted. It’s independents/undecideds that flip flop every election that could sway back against the GOP after getting tired of democrats in 2024

> all of this is assuming that the broad Republican constituency have to some extent gone anti-Trump, and I really don't know how much basis there is for that assumption.

> Republican primary voters don’t seem to be upset.

Replying to both of you. It has started -> https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5214236-democrat-james...

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solar city acquisition was for "only" $2.6 billion. This deal is way bigger. I'm not sure what the Tesla valuation was at the time of that deal, but I have to imagine it's proportionally way bigger too. A $45 billion acquisition when the acquirer, xAI, has an $80 billion valuation will threaten the integrity of xAI. Particularly because that's just a paper valuation and xAI doesn't have much of any revenue. If I…

> and xAI doesn't have much of any revenue or assets. xAI does have some pretty massive datacenters with 200K+ GPUs.

Fair enough, edited to just revenue. But those are just datacenters bought with VC money - my intent was to say that xAI's resources are basically just the investment they've received.

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even a sliver of that capability and influence ensures nobody will ever dare to try and slap some cuffs on him After 2028 elections, all of that umbrella cover will go away. Optimistically speaking it could happen as soon as after Nov of 2026 (midterms).

> Optimistically speaking it could happen as soon as after Nov of 2026 (midterms). The midterms could have some meaningful effect a lot sooner than that if we start seeing across-the-board primary challenges of pro-Trump Republicans. Of course, all of this is assuming that the broad Republican constituency have to some extent gone anti-Trump, and I really don't know how much basis there is for that assumption.

> all of this is assuming that the broad Republican constituency have to some extent gone anti-Trump, and I really don't know how much basis there is for that assumption.

Seems to be absolutely no basis for that assumption. His approval ratings are in the mid 40s, and the people that vote in primaries aren't exactly the waverers and independents that just wanted a change from Biden.

It could change when he properly tanks the economy, but association with Trump isn't likely to be a problem in primaries when you've got more than half a party's membership so immune to reality they'll insist that not only was Trump doing a good job of running the country in 2020, but he also won that election...

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