When Elon Musk introduced that his AI startup, xAI, had acquired his social media firm, X (previously referred to as Twitter), in an all-stock deal, it raised some eyebrows. However in some ways, the deal made sense. xAI’s chatbot, Grok, was already deeply built-in with X, X was floundering financially, and Musk wanted a technique to make his $44 billion Twitter acquisition look much less like an impulsive takeover and extra like a strategic play for AGI dominance.
It additionally pointed to one thing deeper about how Musk’s empire works: investing in any one in every of his firms isn’t a couple of fast return on funding. It’s about shopping for into the mysticism round Musk and swallowing entire a story of success that outpaces the precise numbers.
Some name it a grift, pointing to Musk’s historical past of overpromising and underdelivering. However the market is more and more extra tolerant – welcoming, even – of narrative-led investments, notably when the thread that ties the story collectively is likely one of the president’s right-hand males.
“All of Elon’s firms at the moment are principally one firm,” Yoni Rechtman, a principal at Gradual Ventures, advised TechCrunch. “It’s all already Elon, Inc. There are individuals who work throughout a number of firms concurrently. They share an online of capital connections. They do enterprise with each other, and he treats all of them successfully as one firm. So [the xAI-X merger] simply ends a number of the fiction that the 2 companies have been separate.”
The pondering amongst Musk bulls like Ron Baron, the founding father of funding administration agency Baron Capital, is that “each single factor [Musk] does helps every little thing else he does,” as Baron phrased it. Different companies underneath Musk’s management embody Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Firm, and Neuralink – a few of which reportedly share resources.
“When [Musk] purchased Twitter, did he have in his thoughts that there’s a possibility to have this knowledge, an incredible worth for licensing? When he determined he wished to go to Mars with SpaceX, did he actually suppose initially that there’s an actual alternative right here for the web all over the world, and there’s gonna be tons of of billions of {dollars} of income alternative? When he began off with EVs for Tesla, did he actually suppose that that is gonna merge into self-driving, the place you can also make tons of of billions of {dollars} a 12 months of additional income, and Grok […] and also you’re gonna have linked vehicles all all over the world? […] All these companies hyperlink up. It’s the ecosystem. It’s the Elon ecosystem, and I feel it’s actually attention-grabbing whenever you have a look at it that method.”
Baron Capital has invested throughout Musk’s ecosystem, an instance of the investor crossover between the billionaire’s varied firms. Corporations like 8VC, Andreessen Horowitz, DFJ Development, Constancy Investments, Manhattan Enterprise Companions, Saudi Arabia’s PIF, Sequoia Capital, Vy Capital, and others additionally maintain positions all through Musk’s company internet.
That brings us again to the xAI-X deal. Pundits questioned how the acquisition may worth X at $33 billion, greater than triple its valuation only a few months in the past, and the way it may worth xAI at $80 billion contemplating the AI firm reportedly has little in the way in which of income. However valuations aren’t at all times based mostly on what exists at the moment. Relatively, they take note of what buyers are hoping for – and that’s notably true on the subject of Musk’s ventures.
Simply have a look at Tesla. The electrical automobile maker has been handled like a tech inventory for years even though it has automaker margins, based mostly largely on the idea that Tesla will someday unlock groundbreaking autonomy within the type of self-driving vehicles and humanoid robots.
“The explanation why [Tesla’s] inventory trades at 80 occasions earnings and the comp group trades at 25 occasions earnings is that persons are betting on the long run, and it’s not about what occurs to numbers this 12 months,” Gene Munster, managing companion at Deepwater Asset Administration, advised TechCrunch. “That’s one in every of Elon’s superpowers, this means to maintain buyers engaged for the long run.”
Munster’s agency has invested in X, xAI, and Tesla. It’s precisely the kind of all-in Musk backer that stands to profit probably the most from a deal like xAI shopping for X, assuming Musk can certainly ship on his pledge of marrying X’s real-time knowledge trove and distribution platform with xAI’s infrastructure and AI experience.
In fact, consolidated worth additionally comes with elevated danger.
Dan Wang, a professor at Columbia Enterprise Faculty whose analysis lies on the intersection of enterprise and society, advised TechCrunch that the largest fast danger issue for buyers is the continued lawsuit that X is dealing with from the Securities and Trade Fee (SEC). The swimsuit accuses Musk of deceptive buyers by delaying the disclosure of his earlier investments in Twitter. The SEC has argued that this allowed Musk to purchase extra Twitter shares at artificially low costs.
Wang listed a couple of different danger concerns, reminiscent of anticompetition and person privateness issues, notably relating to how X quietly opted all customers into knowledge assortment for AI mannequin coaching. The opt-in change has already raised the ire of 1 regulator, Eire’s DPC, which lately started investigating it as a possible breach of Europe’s GDPR regulation.
“One other sort of danger right here is that there isn’t a consensus framework for a way the AI market goes to be regulated, however you’re already seeing traces of this in Europe and, up till lately, in California,” Wang mentioned. “Numerous these frameworks should do with how AI fashions are deployed by way of distributing info […] They ascribe duty to the businesses which can be creating AI fashions, in addition to offering entry to these fashions.”
Musk may also merely lose curiosity in a challenge, Rechtman mentioned.
“I feel that’s what a variety of Tesla shareholders are feeling proper now,” he mentioned, “the place for the final a number of months, Elon’s primary firm has been the Trump marketing campaign, and his different tasks have languished.”
When requested about a few of these danger components, Munster appeared nonplussed. He steered they’re inconsequential given the enormity of, for instance, xAI’s worth proposition and potential to develop into a dominant participant in AI.
“We’re betting the agency on the idea that AI goes to be extra transformative than what individuals suppose,” he mentioned. “What’s the worth […] of one of many 4 brains that the world goes to run on?”
Rechtman mentioned that Musk bulls aren’t blindly loyal, per se, however merely belief in Musk’s superpower to “bend capital markets to his will” in a method that permits him to do issues and construct companies that no one else can.
“The people who find themselves in these companies have simply gone lengthy Elon, and they’ll proceed to go lengthy Elon,” Rechtman mentioned. “So it’s not shocking to me that they’ll simply proceed to let you know that the emperor is carrying garments.”
Not for nothing, shopping for into Musk’s extra speculative bets, like X, is one technique to probably unlock extra funding alternatives within the Muskverse, Rechtman mentioned.
“SpaceX is an actual factor, and it’ll by no means go public,” he mentioned. “So the one technique to put money into SpaceX is to get entry to the tenders. And the one technique to get entry to the tenders is to be in Elon’s good graces.”