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Elon Musk has agreed a $300mn take care of Pavel Durov, founding father of Telegram, to distribute xAI’s Grok chatbot to the messaging app’s 1bn customers, in an indication of blossoming partnership between the 2 mercurial billionaires.
As a part of a one-year deal, Telegram will obtain $300mn in money and fairness from xAI, in addition to half of the income from xAI subscriptions bought through the messaging app, Durov wrote on X and Telegram on Wednesday. Musk later wrote on X {that a} deal had not been “signed”, however Durov responded that that they had “agreed in principal”.
Musk and Durov met in Paris lately forward of the deal’s announcement, in line with a number of folks conversant in the matter, as their tech “bromance” grows. The Tesla and SpaceX chief government shares with the Russian-born Telegram boss a ardour totally free expression and opposition to what they see as authorities censorship.
xAI’s Telegram tie-up marks the primary huge enlargement for the unreal intelligence group into a brand new social media service past Musk’s X platform. It follows final week’s new alliance with Microsoft, which is making xAI accessible by way of its Azure cloud computing platform.
xAI purchased X for $45bn in March. Telegram will personal a stake in xAI as a part of the 2 firms’ settlement.
The partnership will promote and combine Musk’s chatbot in a number of methods contained in the Telegram app, exposing xAI to new audiences and helpful information, as social media teams together with Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta pour funding into the AI race.
Final week, the Monetary Occasions reported that Telegram was launching a bond providing of about $1.5bn with the intention to purchase again present debt. In accordance with a presentation shared with buyers and seen by the FT, the corporate made $1.4bn revenues in 2024, up from $343mn a 12 months earlier, and made its first annual revenue of $540mn.
The fast development comes regardless of Durov being detained by French authorities final 12 months. He was positioned beneath formal investigation over Telegram’s alleged failure to handle criminality together with baby abuse and terrorism on its platform. Whereas the investigation continues, judges have ordered him to remain in France, though they’ve allowed him to go on enterprise journeys to Dubai.
Durov and Musk are aligned by their stances on free speech. In current weeks, Durov has publicly criticised what he claims had been French efforts to affect presidential elections in Romania the place a far-right candidate was polling strongly. He stated he had rejected a request by Nicolas Lerner, head of the French intelligence service, to shut down channels of “conservative voices” in Romania — one thing the French company flatly denied.
Durov once more criticised France whereas talking remotely on the Oslo Freedom Discussion board after judges refused to let him journey there. He stated authorities requested Telegram to close down a channel of “far-left protesters and demonstrators” however he refused as a result of it “appeared utterly official, and we refused to conform”.
He stated he had performed so “regardless of the plain private dangers I’m taking with these choices.”
The French inside minister didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Durov’s strategy seems to borrow from the playbook of Musk, a self-declared free speech absolutist, who has more and more used X to accuse sure international leaders of alleged censorship, difficult so-called “takedown” requests in international locations together with Brazil, India and Australia. He has additionally repeatedly accused each the EU and UK governments of censorship, and backed the far-right AfD social gathering in Germany.
Nevertheless, critics argue that Musk is selective within the challenges he takes up.
On Sunday, the X proprietor shared Durov’s submit in regards to the French intelligence request on Romania to his 220mn followers writing: “Wow.”
xAI and Telegram declined to remark additional.
