Why did Elon Musk merge his AI and X companies into one? What does this mean for your data?
Elon Musk’s own acquisition of his artificial intelligence (AI) company xAI and social media platform X (formerly Twitter) is the latest sign of the convergence of AI and social media. While the move is seen primarily as a financial one to boost X’s static revenue by adding it to the AI bubble, it is also likely to bring the companies together so that X’s user data can be used to train xAI.
“Today, we have officially taken the step to combine data, models, compute, distribution and talent ,” Musk said when the acquisition was announced. The move not only consolidates power for Musk, but could also be worrisome for how he uses data, especially if it is used to monetize the company through advertising, experts say.
“It could be that the data stays within their company, but you never know what that company chooses as their future business model ,” said Jan Penfrat, senior policy advisor at the Brussels-based advocacy group European Digital Rights (EDRi). “ Of course, selling information to advertisers has always been part of Twitter’s business model and later X’s business model. So I think it’s absolutely in the cards,” he said.
However, X isn't the only social media platform planning to use data to train AI models. Meta is already doing so by using Facebook and Instagram user data to train its Llama AI model, and may even use photos taken on its Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses.
“Elon Musk would like to consolidate the power [of companies] in this area and also because there is intense competition in AI… So Elon Musk would very much like to be the leader ,” said Petros Iosifidis, professor of media and communication policy at City University in London. “We also have to remember that he is the right-hand man of the new government, of Donald Trump these days. So combining technological power with political power, I think it will be great for him, ” he said.
Fake news and disinformation
But what might be “great” for Musk may not create an unbiased and accurate AI system. Despite Musk saying that his AI model called Grok will be designed to be “Maximum Truth-Seeking Artificial Intelligence,” by training it on X user data, it may not have the best basis for truth.
Since Musk took over and transformed Twitter by not only changing its name but also firing external content moderators, there has been a surge in misinformation and hate speech on the platform.
A study published in February, which analyzed thousands of English-language posts since Musk took over X, found that there was a 50 percent increase in hate speech in the first eight months he owned the company and no change in the amount of fake bot accounts, which Musk vowed to get rid of.
The same hate speech and misinformation can then be spread to train AI models. “ It’s not a very good idea to build large language models (LLMs) as a function on social media, because they very clearly enable the creation of fake news disinformation and all kinds of harmful artificial content that does not contribute positively to the online conversation, ” Penfrat said.
He said one of the issues with LLMs is that they take content from the original author and then repurpose it and sell it back to users, and that this is especially problematic when it's in the context of a social network. " By bringing these two companies together, I think Musk is making it clear to everyone that he's not interested in furthering healthy public debate or anything like that. He's interested in something else commercially, " he added.
Consolidation of power
This could be especially dangerous as it has now consolidated the power of Musk, who not only owns SpaceX, Tesla and xAI, but has also aligned himself with US President Donald Trump. “It’s a good reminder that you have one person who owns the content platform and how these big language models are going to speak to us and what they potentially say or don’t say, so it’s a huge opportunity for censorship,” Penfrat said.
He added that since Musk owns the satellite internet infrastructure, he can threaten to shut down internet connectivity at any time in any country. Penfrat said that if people are concerned about social media companies using their data to train AI models and the political influence they have with their commercial power and financial clout, "then moving away from these platforms is never too late and is always a good idea . "
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