Thread: Elon Musk Sells X to xAI; Raises Questions, Concerns | AI in the News

Elon Musk Sells X to xAI; Raises Questions, Concerns

The announcement has already sparked debate over potential impacts to user privacy.

https://aibusiness.com/generative-ai/elon-musk-sells-x-to-xai-raises-questions-concerns

Excerpts:
Elon Musk has sold his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to his artificial intelligence company xAI for a deal valued at $45 billion, which ultimately values X at $33 billion after accounting for debt. This merger aims to combine the capabilities of xAI with the extensive reach of X, raising concerns about user privacy and data usage ...

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined,” [Musk] wrote. “Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach” ...

“On the one hand, Musk selling X to xAI looks like him transferring money from one of his pockets to another,” said Rik Turner, senior principal cybersecurity analyst at Omdia. “However, by having the still highly influential social media site to his AI firm, we must ask whether he intends to use all of X’s content as training data for xAI” ...

“We should consider to what extent the xAI will have access and utilization of X’s data,” said Finalle [Elvia Finalle, senior analyst of security operations at Omdia]. “Will it only have access to the data publicly shared on X? Would it have access to private data such as passwords, emails and other confidential information? Would the AI model have access to all the private messages?” ...

“By acquiring X – xAI gains access to this treasure trove of personal data, as the social media platform has over 600 million active users, and much of this data is likely highly detailed, including not just user posts but also behavioral data,” McInerney [David McInerney, commercial manager of data privacy at Syrenis] said ..."

... users concerned about their data can update their privacy settings and make their accounts private.

[Try this in X: Go to More > Settings and privacy > Privacy and safety > Data sharing and personalization ]


Note: This news posted at the end of March 2025.

We should think about what difference it makes for xAI to "own" Twitter as it pertains to our "Social Commons."

"The Commons . . . are the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society."

This is a further stealth move to integrate AI into Society.

X's AI Grok is already using Twitter data to crowdsource answers. It refers to tweets, websites, and other sources in its answers. The good news is Grok is not liberal... ChatGPT is.