Elon Musk's self-deal for his AI company xAI to acquire X, formerly Twitter, is the strongest sign yet that the AI business is devouring the social media world. Between the lines: Musk's move is a maneuver to spruce up his overall financial picture — leveraging the AI industry's fizzy valuation arithmetic to shore up X's stagnant revenue and debt-loaded capital structure.

In a post on X, Musk stated, "The futures of xAI and X are interconnected. Today, we officially take the step to merge our data, models,