Beyond the valuation, I think there's 3 things that are interesting to think about:

1. Musk owned an estimated 80% of X and an estimated 50% of xAI [1]. We don't know the specifics of the deal, but we do know it's an all-stock deal, so in theory this should help Musk own more of xAI, which sounds like better-performing and more promising company atm.

2. Tesla has been a big name in AI for a while now, but has been awfully MIA when it comes to generative AI. It's always focused most on vision, sure, but it's not hard to see how other types of AI could fit it's strategy.

Imagine a conversational virtual assistant in your car, or in their robots, or the possible manufacturing applications. In my opinion the device manufacturer + AI lab combo, especially for a device that sells on its promise of cutting-edge technology, makes more sense social network/LLM combo. Beyond the product applications Tesla would greatly benefit from the prestige and marketing of cutting-edge AI.

Nonetheless Musk owns only about 12% of Tesla [2]. It makes more sense for Musk's fortune to ride the wave of this new industry with a private venture he owns. This 12% ownership is down from 22% in 2018 btw [3], before the Twitter acquisition in 2022, which was largely funded by liquidating his Tesla stock [4]. Musk seems to be very much divesting from Tesla— both in effort and in money.

3. Where does this leave Musk, Tesla, and xAI?

- I think it leaves xAI in the position of being the most important company for Musk right now. Best-case, it becomes a "big tech" company. I'm sure we'll keep hearing much more about it, although I don't rule that Musk could try to sell it or merge it if it gives him control of a tech company with a solid business model or strategic importance.

- Musk I think is definitely in a better position than before, fortune and power-wise. He's been diversifying away from a company that's had an insane PE ratio for a while [5], but most importantly, he's been doing so in a pretty smart way. If he had just sold Tesla to buy government bonds, the share price would've crashed. Instead everyone buys into the "he's eccentric and went through a divorce" story. Social network ownership has given him plenty of political power— I don't doubt unbanning Donald Trump is how he got close to him the first place. And now he's converted imaginary wealth from unattainable hype at Tesla into ownership of private company riding the hot tech wave of the moment, concrete political power and self-regulation via his seat in government, and evergreen influence/relevance via his own social network— a tech baron's dream.

- Tesla is not doing great, and Tesla investors are the ones getting the short end of all this. I think Musk realized self-driving is too hard, be it due to tech or regulation. I think he realized he can't compete vs Chinese automakers. I think he's pumping and dumping. If he can get a good deal he might try to merge it with xAI in a way that offers him full control of the company (maybe even private ownership), but otherwise I think Musk is ready to let go of it. He's used its insane valuation to get himself better assets.

[1] https://www.barrons.com/articles/xai-buys-x-musk-twitter-2e5...

[2] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052616/top-4-...

[3] https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/how-elon-musk-con...

[4] https://abc7.com/post/elon-musk-accused-improperly-selling-7...

[5] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/pe-rati...