San Francisco, California - Elon Musk on Friday said his artificial intelligence startup xAI is buying his social networking platform X (formerly known as Twitter) in a deal valuing the company at $33 billion.

"This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI's advanced AI capability and expertise with X's massive reach," Musk said in an X post.

X has more than 600 million users, and its future is "intertwined" with that of xAI, launched two years ago, according to Musk.

"Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution, and talent," Musk said of combining the two companies.

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"This will allow us to build a platform that doesn't just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress."

The companies are being combined in an all-stock deal that values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, factoring in the social network's $12 billion debt.

Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 in a transaction that included debt and launched xAI the following year, spending billions of dollars on high-end Nvidia chips for the venture.

xAI in February released the latest version of its chatbot, Grok 3, which the billionaire hopes will find traction in a highly competitive sector contested by the likes of ChatGPT and China's DeepSeek.