Elon Musk’s social media platform X has raised nearly $1 billion in new equity, achieving a valuation of approximately $32 billion. This represents a recovery from previous valuation drops, though it remains below the original $44 billion acquisition price from 2022. The capital raise comes amid signs of financial revival, with X posting approximately $1.4 billion in adjusted profit for 2024.
Earlier this week, Elon Musk’s xAI acquired Hotshot, an AI video generation startup, to enhance its generative AI capabilities and compete with platforms like OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo 2. This acquisition suggests the potential integration of generative AI tools into X’s content ecosystem, aligning with existing AI features like Grok-powered news summaries.
$1B at $32B valuation: what do we know so far?
The $32 billion equity valuation and $12.5 billion in debt maintain X’s enterprise value at the original $44 billion acquisition price, marking a financial comeback. However, this recovery needs closer examination. Financial analysts point out that X’s adjusted profits include earnings from related parties while excluding costs from layoffs and new investments like xAI. Despite lower revenues than during the Twitter era, this paints a rosier economic picture.
The debt situation shows significant improvement from recent challenges. In January 2025, Wall Street banks planned to sell X debt at 90–95 cents on the dollar, with Morgan Stanley leading the effort. This marks a stark change from late 2023, when hedge funds and investors refused to buy X’s debt even at steep discounts, with some calling it “uninvestable.”
The equity raise has drawn several notable investors alongside Musk: Darsana Capital Partners, which bought some of X’s debt earlier in 2025, and 1789 Capital, which also backs Musk’s xAI and SpaceX ventures.
The timing of this raise is strategic, coinciding with fundraising efforts for SpaceX (valued at $350 billion) and xAI (targeting a $75 billion valuation, up from $18 billion in May 2024). This creates potential cross-company leverage while maintaining X’s operational independence.
X Money: a step towards the “Everything App”
The most transformative element of X’s future strategy is the planned launch of X Money, a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payment service, in Q2 2025. This initiative marks the clearest step toward Musk’s vision of transforming X into an “everything app” modelled after China’s WeChat.
In January 2025, X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced a Visa partnership to create this peer-to-peer payment platform. Features will include debit card connections for peer-to-peer payments, instant bank transfers, X Wallet access via Visa Direct, fiat and cryptocurrency transactions support, and creator monetisation, allowing influencers to store earnings directly in X Wallets.
X Money revives Musk’s original financial services vision. His first venture, X.com (founded in 1999), was envisioned as a “global financial nexus” for banking, mortgages, credit, and investments before merging with Confinity to form PayPal. Twenty-six years later, Musk is finally implementing this vision through X Money.
Next steps for X
X Money’s rollout leads the upcoming initiatives. A phased U.S. launch in Q2 2025 will begin with creator payouts and P2P transfers. The company will integrate Hotshot’s technology for video features while expanding Grok’s role in content curation. Plus, global expansion lies ahead as X plans to scale its payment services beyond U.S. licensed states while navigating regulatory requirements.
Despite past challenges, X has shown remarkable financial resilience by raising $1 billion at a $32 billion valuation. The platform actively pursues its “everything app” vision through strategic acquisitions, AI integration, and financial services expansion. Still, significant obstacles remain in user growth, advertiser relations, and regulatory compliance.
