Elon Musk’s xAI Acquires AI Video Startup Hotshot

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has acquired Hotshot, a San Francisco-based startup specializing in AI-powered video generation. Hotshot’s CEO, Aakash Sastry, announced the news on X, highlighting the company’s work on three video foundation models and its plans to scale operations using xAI’s Colossus supercomputer.

Hotshot, originally focused on AI-driven photo editing, later pivoted to text-to-video AI models and attracted investments from Lachy Groom, Alexis Ohanian, and SV Angel. The acquisition suggests xAI is looking to develop video generation models to compete with OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo 2.

Musk previously hinted at a “Grok Video” model, expected in the coming months. Hotshot has halted new video creation as of March 14, with existing users able to download their content until March 30. It remains unclear if Hotshot’s full team will join xAI.