Company · Frontier labs
SpaceXAI revenue, valuation & funding
xAI was valued at $250 billion when SpaceX bought it in February 2026, and Sacra estimates it reached a $3.8B run rate with X by December 2025. It now runs as SpaceXAI with no shares of its own, while its parent SpaceX trades on Nasdaq as SPCX.
At a glance
- Valuation: $250 billion in SpaceX's all-stock purchase in February 2026, according to a person familiar who spoke to Reuters.
- Revenue: no separate results. Sacra estimates a $3.8B yearly run rate with X at the end of 2025. SpaceX, including xAI, booked $18.7B in 2025.
- Status: part of SpaceX since February 2, 2026, and renamed SpaceXAI in July 2026. No shares or ticker of its own.
- Parent: SpaceX, whose Class A shares have traded on Nasdaq as SPCX since June 12, 2026.
- Founded: March 9, 2023, by Elon Musk.
- Leaders: Elon Musk, its founder and SpaceX's CEO. Michael Nicolls has been xAI's president since April 2026.
- Products: the Grok chatbot and API, the social network X and, since August 2026, Cursor.
- Headquarters: 1450 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, California.
- On Real Alpha: 42 moments of its people talking, from 6 interviews.
Is xAI public? Can you buy its stock?
No, not on its own. xAI has no ticker, and there are no separate xAI shares to buy. SpaceX bought it in an all-stock deal on February 2, 2026, making it a wholly owned subsidiary (Reuters).
Its investors received 0.1433 SpaceX shares for each xAI share, Reuters reported. Some xAI executives could take cash at $75.46 a share instead. In May 2026, Musk said xAI would no longer be a separate company, with Grok and X becoming SpaceX's AI division (Engadget). It was renamed SpaceXAI on July 6, 2026.
SpaceX itself is public. Musk confirmed in December 2025 that it would go public, after years of rejecting the idea (Wikipedia). It priced its IPO at $135 a share on June 11, 2026, raising $75 billion (CBS News). Its Class A shares trade on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX (SEC filing). They closed at $160.95 on the first day of trading.
Musk was set to hold about 82.4% of SpaceX's voting power after the offering, per its prospectus. That makes SpaceX a controlled company under Nasdaq rules. xAI's former investors now hold SpaceX shares in place of xAI shares. This page reports facts and gives no investment advice.
Valuation, round by round
Its valuation went from $24B at the May 2024 Series B to $250B in SpaceX's February 2026 deal, more than ten times in under two years.
| Date | Valued at | Raised | Led by | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2026 | — | $20B | — | Reuters |
| May 2024 | $24B | $6B | — | Fox Business |
Sacra cites a $10B raise in July 2025 and a $200B valuation that September, and both figures are unconfirmed, with no primary report. Sacra also cites $230B at the Series E, which isn't confirmed either. xAI stated no valuation for the Series E.
Revenue
xAI publishes no results of its own. Sacra estimates xAI and X reached about a $3.8B yearly run rate at the end of 2025. Sacra says that was up from the $1 billion or more xAI discussed with investors in April 2025.
A run rate is a month's revenue times twelve. It isn't audited revenue, and both figures are estimates from Sacra.
How xAI makes money
xAI sells Grok subscriptions and API access, and X earns money from advertising. It publishes no separate results. Internal documents reported by Bloomberg showed $107M in revenue for the third quarter of 2025, Sacra says. SpaceX, including xAI, booked $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025 (CBS News).
It spends far more than it earns. Bloomberg reported in June 2025 that xAI was burning about $1 billion a month, Sacra notes. Sacra also says xAI spent $7.8B in cash in the first nine months of 2025. SpaceX lost $8.7 billion between the start of 2025 and March 31, 2026 (CBS News).
Gwynne Shotwell said in September 2026 that SpaceX saw no drop in demand for its compute rental business.
- Consumer subscriptions. SuperGrok costs about $30 a month and SuperGrok Heavy about $300, according to Sacra. Sacra
- Business plans. Sacra lists Grok Business at $30 per seat a month. Sacra
- Developers. Its API is priced by usage, per Sacra. Sacra
- Advertising on X. Sacra puts xAI's run rate without X's ads at about $500M at the end of 2025. Sacra
From SpaceXAI's interviews
- 10:48 Compute rental demand is holding while Starlink has room to growGwynne Shotwell · All-In · Sep 2026
- 1:06:14 Existing apps could give AI a path into customer serviceElon Musk · Dwarkesh Podcast · Feb 2026
- 18:21 SpaceX sees orbit as a faster site for AI computeGwynne Shotwell · All-In · Sep 2026
- 0:47 Space solar could make AI power far cheaperElon Musk · Dwarkesh Podcast · Feb 2026
Products
- Grok (Grok 4.1 released November 2025). The chatbot runs on grok.com, X, iOS and Android. Sacra
- Grok Business and Grok Enterprise (December 2025). Plans for companies. Sacra
- X (formerly Twitter). xAI took it over effective March 28, 2025. It now sits inside SpaceX under the SpaceXAI brand. SEC (S-1/A)
- Cursor (August 14, 2026). SpaceX closed its purchase of Anysphere, Cursor's maker, which became a wholly owned subsidiary and joined the SpaceXAI team. Wikipedia
- Colossus. Its computing site in Memphis, where xAI has run gas turbines. Wikipedia
From SpaceXAI's interviews
- 26:23 Grok uses inference to correct and fill gaps in source materialElon Musk · All-In · Sep 2025
- 51:18 xAI wants debuggers that trace model errors to their sourceElon Musk · Dwarkesh Podcast · Feb 2026
- 9:00 Getting a gigawatt online required solving several supply bottlenecksElon Musk · Dwarkesh Podcast · Feb 2026
- 31:56 Human-generated data is running short, so AI needs synthetic dataElon Musk · Lightcone · Jun 2025
Users and usage
SpaceX's IPO filing counted about 117 million monthly active users of Grok's AI features as of March 31, 2026 (SEC filing). That was up from about 89 million at December 31, 2025.
Grok reaches people on grok.com, inside X, and in its iOS and Android apps.
From SpaceXAI's interviews
- 12:00 Musk bought Twitter after noticing changes to the platformElon Musk · The Joe Rogan Experience · Nov 2024
- 35:42 Twitter's FBI portal messages auto-deleted after two weeksElon Musk · The Joe Rogan Experience · Nov 2024
Leadership
After the SpaceX deal, xAI laid off some staff in February 2026 and reorganized into four main development teams (Wikipedia). It had laid off 500 data annotation workers on September 12, 2025.
- Elon Musk, founded xAI on March 9, 2023. He is SpaceX's founder, CEO, chief technical officer and chairman. SEC (S-1/A)
- Michael Nicolls, xAI's president since April 10, 2026. He was a vice president of SpaceX's Starlink. Wikipedia
- Gwynne Shotwell, president and COO of SpaceX, which owns xAI.
- Anthony Armstrong, xAI's chief financial officer, left on April 10, 2026. Wikipedia
From SpaceXAI's interviews
- 2:11:06 Musk pairs aggressive deadlines with live engineering reviewsElon Musk · Dwarkesh Podcast · Feb 2026
- 21:58 SpaceX gives proven hires hard problems and clears their pathGwynne Shotwell · All-In · Sep 2026
- 39:28 SpaceX raises rocket problems early because physics will expose themGwynne Shotwell · All-In · Sep 2026
- 10:18 Musk says he stayed in government too longElon Musk · The Builders with Walter Isaacson · Oct 2026
Who owns xAI?
SpaceX owns all of xAI. Its outside investors swapped their xAI shares for SpaceX shares at 0.1433 per xAI share (Reuters). Musk was set to hold about 82.4% of SpaceX's voting power after its IPO.
- SpaceX has owned all of xAI since February 2, 2026. Wikipedia
- Valor Equity Partners, StepStone Group, Fidelity and the Qatar Investment Authority invested in the $20 billion Series E in January 2026, with Nvidia and Cisco Investments as strategic investors. Reuters
- Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding joined Valor and Fidelity in the May 2024 Series B. x.ai
- HUMAIN of Saudi Arabia invested $3 billion in the Series E and became a significant minority shareholder, Sacra says. Sacra
- Tesla said in January 2026 that it planned to invest $2bn in xAI, the Guardian reported. The Guardian (via Yahoo Finance)
Competitors
Reuters named Google, Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI as rivals when SpaceX announced the deal. Musk said in October 2026 that he met Anthropic staff before providing it compute. He has called for rival labs to test each other's models before release.
- OpenAI, named by Reuters and by Sacra. Reuters (via Yahoo Finance)
- Anthropic, named by Reuters and by Sacra. Reuters (via Yahoo Finance)
- Google, part of Alphabet, named by Reuters. Reuters (via Yahoo Finance)
- Meta, named by Reuters. Reuters (via Yahoo Finance)
What its people said about the competition
- 7:33 Musk proposes rivals review AI models before releaseElon Musk · The Builders with Walter Isaacson · Oct 2026
- 28:51 AI companies should test one another’s modelsElon Musk · All-In · Sep 2026
Timeline and latest news
From its founding to the latest reports, newest first.
- Aug 14, 2026Latest
SpaceX closed its purchase of Cursor, which joined the SpaceXAI team. Wikipedia - Jul 6, 2026Latest
xAI was renamed SpaceXAI, with a new logo. Engadget - Jun 11, 2026Latest
SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 a share, raising $75 billion. CBS News - May 2026
Musk said xAI would stop being a separate company inside SpaceX. Wikipedia - Apr 10, 2026
Michael Nicolls of Starlink became xAI's president, and its CFO left. Wikipedia - Feb 17, 2026
Ireland's Data Protection Commission opened an investigation into Grok. Reuters (via Yahoo Finance) - Feb 2, 2026
SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock deal. Reuters (via Yahoo Finance) - Jan 26, 2026
The European Commission opened an investigation into Grok. Reuters (via Yahoo Finance) - Jan 6, 2026
Announced a $20 billion Series E, up from a $15 billion target. Reuters - Dec 2025
Musk confirmed SpaceX would go public. Wikipedia - Nov 2025
Released Grok 4.1. Sacra - Sep 12, 2025
Laid off 500 data annotation workers. Wikipedia - Jun 2025
The NAACP threatened to sue over gas turbines at its Memphis site. Wikipedia - Mar 28, 2025
Took over X in an all-stock deal valuing X at $33 billion and xAI at $80 billion, by Sacra's estimate. Sacra - May 26, 2024
Announced a $6 billion Series B, which Musk said valued it at $24 billion. Fox Business - Mar 9, 2023
Elon Musk founded xAI. Wikipedia
Legal matters
Regulators in Europe opened cases in early 2026 over sexualised images made with Grok. Their status after February 2026 isn't confirmed.
- European Commission (January 26, 2026). A Digital Services Act investigation into whether Grok spreads illegal content such as manipulated sexualised images. It was still open on February 17. Reuters (via Yahoo Finance)
- Ireland's Data Protection Commission (February 17, 2026). An investigation into how Grok handles personal data. Reuters (via Yahoo Finance)
- Paris prosecutors raided X's Paris office on February 3, 2026, over sexualised deepfakes made with Grok. Reuters (via Yahoo Finance)
- Memphis turbines. Environmental advocates said xAI ran gas turbines at its Colossus site without the needed permits. The NAACP threatened to sue in June 2025, and the current status isn't stated. Wikipedia
- xAI v. OpenAI. xAI sued OpenAI over hiring its staff and Grok training secrets. Mark Gurman said in July 2026 that the case had been dismissed the month before.
In their own words, and what followed
What people said about the business, with the minute they said it, and what was reported after.
Elon Musk on The Joe Rogan Experience · Nov 4, 2024
“provided what you're asking for is legal, it should do it.”
1:38:17 Grok aims to answer requests that are legal
Reported after
In January 2026 the European Commission opened an investigation into whether Grok spreads illegal content such as manipulated sexualised images. Reuters (via Yahoo Finance)
Elon Musk on The Joe Rogan Experience · Nov 4, 2024
“I had the most number of interactions of any account in the system.”
12:00 Musk bought Twitter after noticing changes to the platform
Reported after
xAI took over X in an all-stock deal on March 28, 2025. Sacra estimates the deal valued X at $33 billion and xAI at $80 billion. Sacra
Elon Musk on Dwarkesh Podcast · Feb 5, 2026
“So any given solar panels can do about five times more power in space than on the ground.”
0:47 Space solar could make AI power far cheaper
Reported after
In May 2026 Musk said xAI would no longer be a separate company, with Grok and X becoming SpaceX's AI division. Engadget
What others say about SpaceXAI
Moments where people outside the company talk about it.
Gavin Ezekowitz · How I Invest · Oct 28, 2026
“In fact, I passed on XAI in that $25,000,000,000 early round.”
26:59 SpaceX's compute buildout shows the value of anticipating shortages 3 min
Gavin Baker · TBPN · Oct 27, 2026
“In the prior era, Grok was putting up pretty remarkable results on benchmarks”
7:56 AI agents are helping investors route information faster 4 min
Scott Galloway · Prof G Markets · Oct 26, 2026
“He stuffed Twitter into XAI”
7:58 The merger shifts attention from Tesla’s weakening car business 8 min
Marc Andreessen · a16z Podcast · Jan 7, 2026
“And XAI is maybe the best example of that”
55:00 AI model leads may be easier to catch than expected 4 min
Alexander Wissner-Gross · Moonshots · Oct 23, 2026
19:04 Musk is blurring the boundaries between his companies 3 min
Questions people ask
Is xAI a public company? Can I buy xAI stock?
No. xAI has no shares or ticker of its own. It is part of SpaceX, whose Class A shares have traded on Nasdaq as SPCX since June 12, 2026 (CBS News).
When will xAI IPO?
No separate xAI listing has been announced. Musk said in May 2026 that xAI would stop being a separate company inside SpaceX (Engadget). SpaceX went public in June 2026.
Who owns xAI?
SpaceX, since February 2, 2026. Musk was set to hold about 82.4% of SpaceX's voting power after its IPO, per the prospectus.
Who is the CEO of xAI?
Its founder, Elon Musk, is CEO of its parent, SpaceX. Michael Nicolls, from SpaceX's Starlink, became xAI's president on April 10, 2026. 2:11:06
Who founded xAI?
Elon Musk, on March 9, 2023. Wikipedia says he started it with 11 researchers.
How much is xAI worth?
SpaceX's purchase in February 2026 valued xAI at $250 billion, a person familiar told Reuters. xAI has no market price of its own, since only SpaceX's shares trade.
How much revenue does xAI make?
xAI publishes no results. Sacra estimates xAI and X reached about a $3.8B yearly run rate at the end of 2025, or about $500M without X's ads.
Is xAI profitable?
No figures show a profit. SpaceX, which includes xAI, is unprofitable and lost $8.7 billion from the start of 2025 to March 31, 2026 (CBS News).
How does xAI make money?
Grok subscriptions from about $30 to $300 a month, per Sacra, plus business plans, a usage-priced API and advertising on X. 10:48
How many people use Grok?
About 117 million monthly active users used Grok's AI features as of March 31, 2026, per SpaceX's IPO filing.
Where is xAI headquartered?
At 1450 Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, California. xAI moved there in October 2025 (Wikipedia).
Who are xAI's competitors?
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta, which Reuters named as rivals in February 2026. 7:33
Every moment from SpaceXAI's people
42 moments from 6 interviews on 5 shows, newest first. Each one plays from the minute it starts.
The Builders with Walter Isaacson · Oct 20, 2026 · 3 moments
Elon Musk: The End of Work, the Death of Money, and a World Run by AI
All-In · Sep 15, 2026 · 8 moments
Elon Musk & Gwynne Shotwell on AI Risks and Peer Review, Starship, Terafab, SpaceX/Tesla Merger
- 28:51 AI companies should test one another’s models 7 min
- 41:58 Starship aims for rapid, full reusability 4 min
- 46:03 Terafab is meant to secure future chip supply 5 min
- 21:58 SpaceX gives proven hires hard problems and clears their path 5 min
- 1:25 SpaceX won early customers by fixing a weak launch market 6 min
- 10:48 Compute rental demand is holding while Starlink has room to grow 3 min
- 18:21 SpaceX sees orbit as a faster site for AI compute 4 min
- 39:28 SpaceX raises rocket problems early because physics will expose them 3 min
Dwarkesh Podcast · Feb 5, 2026 · 8 moments
Elon Musk – "In 36 months, the cheapest place to put AI will be space”
- 0:47 Space solar could make AI power far cheaper 8 min
- 1:20:02 Optimus needs real-world self-play to close its data gap 8 min
- 1:55:40 Stainless steel made Starship easier to build and lighter 8 min
- 9:00 Getting a gigawatt online required solving several supply bottlenecks 6 min
- 1:06:14 Existing apps could give AI a path into customer service 6 min
- 2:11:06 Musk pairs aggressive deadlines with live engineering reviews 8 min
- 1:31:41 China's refining lead exposes a US manufacturing bottleneck 7 min
- 51:18 xAI wants debuggers that trace model errors to their source 6 min
All-In · Sep 10, 2025 · 7 moments
Elon Musk on DOGE, Optimus, Starlink Smartphones, Evolving with AI, Why the West is Imploding
- 2:57 Optimus hands are the hardest part to build at scale 8 min
- 40:13 Mars must build the means to sustain its own civilization 5 min
- 28:52 Musk expects AI to surpass human intelligence within five years 3 min
- 12:16 AI5 targets a 40x gain on an AI4 bottleneck 5 min
- 16:46 Starlink's direct-to-phone service is about two years away 3 min
- 20:16 Starship's heat shield remains a hurdle to full reuse 6 min
- 26:23 Grok uses inference to correct and fill gaps in source material 3 min
Show 2 more interviews
Lightcone · Jun 19, 2025 · 8 moments
Elon Musk: Digital Superintelligence, Multiplanetary Life, How to Be Useful
- 25:44 First-principles reasoning can expose hidden cost reductions 6 min
- 17:01 SpaceX and Tesla nearly ran out of money in 2008 5 min
- 43:08 Neuralink could raise human communication bandwidth 3 min
- 13:10 SpaceX began as a way to make Mars affordable 4 min
- 22:14 Musk measures ambition by useful work, not status 3 min
- 31:56 Human-generated data is running short, so AI needs synthetic data 3 min
- 36:32 Musk says Mars could become self-sustaining within 30 years 3 min
- 11:05 Zip2’s customer constraints pushed Musk toward direct-to-consumer 2 min
The Joe Rogan Experience · Nov 4, 2024 · 8 moments
Joe Rogan Experience #2223 - Elon Musk
- 1:38:17 Grok aims to answer requests that are legal 7 min
- 2:10:33 Regulatory reviews can outlast building a rocket 4 min
- 2:20:13 Tariffs need a ramp so manufacturers can adapt 7 min
- 12:00 Musk bought Twitter after noticing changes to the platform 3 min
- 2:27:18 Musk expects AI and robotics to be mostly beneficial 5 min
- 1:33:07 Tesla would build a phone if Apple or Google became gatekeepers 4 min
- 2:32:10 Starlink expects to connect ordinary phones within months 2 min
- 35:42 Twitter's FBI portal messages auto-deleted after two weeks 2 min
People on Real Alpha
- Elon Musk, CEO, SpaceX & Tesla; founder, xAI · 37 moments
- Gwynne Shotwell, President & COO, SpaceX · 5 moments
Other companies in Frontier labs
OpenAI · Anthropic · Google DeepMind · Meta · Microsoft AI · Mistral AI · DeepSeek · Safe Superintelligence · Thinking Machines Lab · Cohere · Moonshot AI · Reflection AI
How this page is sourced
Each figure links to the filing, company statement or news report it came from, with its date. Run rates are what reporters were told, not audited results; estimates and unconfirmed reports are marked. Quotes are what each person said on the record, with the minute they said it. Spotted something that's off? .
Last checked Nov 7, 2026