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Elon Musk’s social media platform X is in talks with investors over raising cash that would value the site at 44 billion dollars (£34.9 billion), according to latest reports.
The valuation is the same price Mr Musk paid for the platform in 2022, and would suggest a turn in fortunes for the company, which has seen advertisers and users step away following a string of controversies under Mr Musk’s ownership.
According to a report from Bloomberg News, the talks over the financing round are still ongoing and the details could change, and the amount of cash looking to be raised has not been confirmed.
Since taking over X in 2022, Mr Musk has changed the site’s name from Twitter, dismissed the majority of its staff, dismantled its verified accounts system and replaced it with paid subscriptions, and rowed back on content moderation.
These moves, along with a number of other controversies involving the billionaire, including allowing the return of formerly banned accounts to the site, and the repeated circulation of conspiracy theories and misinformation on his own profile, has seen high-profile advertisers and many users flee the site.
This has led to rival social media platforms such as Bluesky reporting spikes in their own user numbers.
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As a result, many industry experts had suggested X’s estimated value had slumped well below the 44 billion dollars Mr Musk paid to acquire the platform in late 2022.
However, the billionaire’s close proximity to US President Donald Trump and his role as a central figure advising the new administration has seen investors begin to bet that this relationship will likely be positive for Mr Musk’s other businesses over time.
Shares in his electric car firm Tesla have risen around 40% since Mr Trump’s election, and there have also been reports that his AI start-up, xAI, is in talks over investor funding that would value it at 75 billion dollars (£59.4 billion).
On Monday, xAI unveiled its latest AI model, Grok 3, which Mr Musk claimed was now superior to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT and was the “smartest AI on Earth”.
