xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B • Hacker News Board

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

#781

Post by sitkack » Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 1:17 PM UTC

cellwebb wrote: post #707

minwcnt5 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also lets all of his co-investors in X, who were likely pissed that their shares tanked, exchange their shares at an inflated value (but one that still sees them losing 25% of their original investment) for shares in a trendy yet likely overvalued AI company that they consider to have more upside. The other part of this is that if TSLA stock drops to $100-ish he'll be at risk of being margin called on the loans…

I don't think he's going to be able to spin up hype on anything after this. He's burned a lot of bridges.

When you Godwin your own thread, you are by definition done.

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

#782

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 1:18 PM UTC

[deleted]

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

#783

Post by javier2 » Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 1:22 PM UTC

TheAlchemist wrote: post #70

This is Solar City all over again, but at least this time it's not with public investors money. He can now use the money raised by xAI, to pay off the debt of X, which was bleeding money. So today in corporate America we have: - Trump pardoning one of the most obvious scammer of the past 10 years - Trevor Milton - Trump pardoning some obvious crypto scammers - Musk using investors money from one of his companies, to…

And unfortunately, AI companies like xAI are relatively cheap to keep running, so it could take a while before it goes bankrupt.

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

#784

Post by uberdru » Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 1:23 PM UTC

Attorney and legal commentator Tristan Snell, via X: "Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter was financed by borrowing money. He used his Tesla stock as collateral. If Tesla stock keeps crashing, the banks/creditors could repossess Twitter."

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

#785

Post by refurb » Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 1:36 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #182

bhouston wrote: post #29

He has done this move before with Tesla buying Solar City. When you do a deal with yourself you can assign any value you want to assets, it isn’t a competitive process. In the previous case Solar City was dying but its acquisition by Tesla was pitched as a great synergy. https://www.businessinsider.com/solarcity-tesla-energy-belea... There were a few lawsuits from Tesla shareholders about the acquisition regarding se…

You’re burying the lede here, which is that the Delaware Chancery Court rules that Tesla had paid a fair price for Solar City: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-wins-solarcity-tes...

Indeed.

Grandparent is not correct, you can’t just assign “whatever” value in self-dealing transactions.

The SEC and IRS weren’t born yesterday. It reminds me of people who come up with basic self-dealing transactions with some tax benefit and act like the idea wasn’t around 100 years ago and that regulations aren’t already in place.

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

#786

Post by junto » Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 1:36 PM UTC

telotortium wrote: post #391

bayarearefugee wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take is that its super obvious X is a rapidly failing social media platform that is reportedly very dangerously leveraged with Tesla stock value... but xAI still has that Zombo.com magic where anything is possible and the unattainable is unknown.

Clearly the $44B price was too high for what it was really worth as a platform - Musk tried to get out of the deal, or at least decrease the price, but was forced to buy it at his initial offer by the courts. But I don't think there's any basis to say it's rapidly failing, at least from an engagement perspective - if BlueSky or Threads were going to kill X, they would have done so by now, or at least be well on their…

What’s the point though if more and more real people delete the app and their accounts? He owns the equivalent of Lake Aral.

I gave up an early 5 letter word account on Twitter because I refuse to support a bully that has clear fascist intentions and the entire platform seemed to be turning into bots spouting racist Nazi tropes.

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

#787

Post by philistine » Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 1:44 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #720

echoangle wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> He literally commands the most powerful military apparatus the world has ever seen. > That’s also disputable Why? Which military has ever existed that would have a chance against the current US military?

Taliban. Conventional armies have a hard stand against partisans. The US in Vietnam and Russia and the US in Afghanistan.

So the Taliban have ten aircraft carriers and the ability to bomb any target on Earth without losing the plane?

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

#788

Post by philistine » Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 1:47 PM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #768

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the rate he's going, SpaceX is probably on its way to being nationalized within the next few elections. And that would make sense totally aside from punitive response: it is pretty dangerous to have such vital defense infrastructure controlled by such a mercurial personality.

> And that would make sense totally aside from punitive response So the government has spend the last nearly 50 years completely failing in building rockets or sats the way SpaceX did. SpaceX with little money did it in less then 20 years. And now you think its smart to have have the government taking over again? Do you want the government to run the global Starlink network, dealing with costumer complains? What part…

The US government could buy out Musk, keep the company public while owning a majority of the shares and do nothing with them unless the company does something incredibly stupid.

That's how China does it.

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

#789

Post by stephc_int13 » Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 1:48 PM UTC

The real important question is: why? And why now?

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

#790

Post by arp242 » Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 1:49 PM UTC

mingus88 wrote: post #87

saaaaaam wrote: post #48

So he just sold himself a company he already owns for a valuation that he himself assigned to that company but that was less than what he paid for it, and he paid entirely using “money” that has a made up value and which he issues himself? Wild.

Yeah these fantasies where musk would somehow go bankrupt by tanking Tesla and overpaying for Twitter were also wild He’s literally the richest person the earth has ever known. He’s never going to suffer financially. He has countless levers of power he can pull. The same fantasy applies to any past or current president ever spending a day in jail. He literally commands the most powerful military apparatus the world h…

Past presidents don't hold command over any military. France sent a former president to jail just a few months ago. Brazil and South Korea are in the process of putting a former president on trial. El Chapo was billionaire and had a private army of murderers – he's currently in prison.

The main reason Trump hasn't been impeached and (possibly) jailed is because the political system in the US is dysfunctional. Party because it's not a great system to start with, and partly because a critical section of people made the decision to intentionally break it for selfish gain. But there is nothing that says it needs to be like this.