xAI Acquires X (twitter)

Welcome to another edition of AI PlanetX.

xAI takes over X in a $33B Musk-led shift; Sam Altman firing details surface; Gemini 2.5 Pro could be AI’s best thinker yet.

• Hottest AI News

• Top AI & SaaS Tools: Gemini 2.5 Pro is available for F-R-E-E on Gemini Web and App!

• Top AI & Tech News

• Interesting Uses of AI

• AI Video Tutorial: Secret to Perfect Prompts

• F-R-E-E AI Course of the Day: Build Apps with Windsurf

Hottest AI News

Elon

xAI Acquires X (Twitter) Platform in $33B Musk-to-Musk Transaction

Elon Musk announced that his AI company, xAI, has acquired X (formerly Twitter) in an all-stock deal. The acquisition values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, marking a major shift in Musk's tech ventures.

Details:

• xAI is acquiring X for $33 billion, including $12 billion in debt from Musk's Twitter purchase. This is an $11 billion drop from the $44 billion Musk paid in 2022, despite X CEO Linda Yaccarino's optimism

• The merger aims to combine xAI's AI expertise with X's 600 million active users, creating "smarter, more meaningful experiences" and advancing knowledge

• This follows Musk's pattern of merging companies he controls, like Tesla's 2016 $2.6 billion acquisition of SolarCity. xAI's valuation has surged from $24 billion in spring 2024 to $80 billion

The merger solidifies xAI and X's close ties. It's unclear if X investors own 25% of xAI. As xAI expands, this move supports Musk's vision of X as "the digital town square" and could help compete with AI rivals like OpenAI.

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OpenAI

Book Reveals Behind The Scenes Of Sam Altman Firing

In November 2023, Sam Altman, OpenAI's leader, was unexpectedly fired by the board. While dining with Peter Thiel in LA, he was warned about "AI safety people" undermining him, unaware of the board's secret plans. The event highlighted tensions between tech ambition and AI's future concerns.

Details:

• OpenAI's nonprofit board structure created governance challenges. Unlike typical tech companies, the board prioritized humanity over shareholders, allowing them to fire Altman despite his fame. Tensions between his vision and the board’s oversight reached a breaking point

• The AI safety divide had been growing for years. The board’s effective altruism members focused on AI risks, while Altman’s optimistic approach led to fundamental disagreements on OpenAI’s direction

• Trust eroded as OpenAI’s success grew. With ChatGPT’s success nearing an $86 billion valuation, 800 employees stood to gain life-changing wealth. However, board members grew concerned by Altman’s secrecy and misdirection, leading them to part ways with him

This power struggle shows the challenges of governing AI. Control, safety, and humanity’s future will shape OpenAI’s path and AI's role in the future.

Top AI & SaaS Tools

• Pismo (Life-time Deal): AI assistant that can rewrite, proofread, and translate whatever you’re writing, no matter where you are (available for both Windows and Mac)

• Actor Mode by ElevenLabs: You can use your own voice to guide the delivery of scripts spoken by AI voices with this feature [F-R-E-E]

• Project G-Assist: AI assistant powered by your GeForce RTX PC that helps you tune and optimize your system [F-R-E-E]

• Ai2 Paper Finder: Research tool for paper discovery, with broad and deep coverage via a corpus of 8M+ full text papers and 108M+ abstracts [F-R-E-E]

• Gemini 2.5 Pro: This latest experimental model has been deployed to all Gemini users (Make sure to select it from top) [F-R-E-E]

Top AI & Tech News

• Hands on with Gemini 2.5 Pro: why it might be the most useful reasoning model yet

• OpenAI relaxes ChatGPT moderation rules for AI images of public figures and sensitive symbols

• Pika has launched an AI feature that allows users to interact with a virtual representation of their younger selves

• OpenAI is required to complete transition to for-profit company by the end of the year to secure a full funding of $40 billion led by SoftBank

• CoreWeave, which shifted from crypto-mining to AI infrastructure, launched its IPO, raising $1.5 billion and achieving a $14 billion market cap on its first day

• H&M is planning to create 30 digital clones of human models this year, raising concerns about the implications of AI in the fashion industry

Interesting Uses of AI

AI Art Spotlight

Model: Reve Image 1.0 (Halfmoon)

Prompt:

A golden retriever puppy's nose pressed against the camera lens, its soft fur filling the frame. The background shows a blurred ceiling fan slowly rotating, illuminated by warm morning light. The image evokes the feeling of waking up to a furry friend's morning kisses.

15 Striking Examples of ChatGPT’s Image Generation Feature

Top AI Video Tutorial

Secret to Perfect Prompts (Without Prompt Engineering)

Complimentary AI Course of the Day

Build Apps with Windsurf’s AI Coding Agents

This course covers collaborating with AI agents to enhance coding workflows and efficiency. Learn to use Windsurf for real-world tasks like debugging JavaScript, updating a codebase, and building a Wikipedia analysis app, while managing AI behavior challenges.