Elon Musk's xAI company has acquired Hotshot, a startup that generates videos using AI. For what purpose?
San Francisco-based startup Hotshot, founded a few years ago, has announced its joining Elon Musk’s xAI.
San Francisco-based startup Hotshot, founded a few years ago, has announced its joining Elon Musk’s xAI.
«We are excited to announce that Hotshot has been acquired by xAI,» Aakash Sastri, CEO and co-founder of the startup, wrote in X.
In his post, he also reported that over the past 2 years, the small Hotshot team has built 3 core video models: Hotshot-XL, Hotshot Act One, and Hotshot. «We are excited to continue scaling this effort on the world’s largest Colossus cluster as part of xAI!» notes Aakash Sastri.
Some news — We’re excited to announce that @HotshotSupport has been acquired by @xAI 🚀
— Aakash (@aakashsastry) March 17, 2025
Over the past 2 years we’ve built 3 video foundation models as a small team — Hotshot-XL, Hotshot Act One, and Hotshot.
Training these models has given us a look into how global education,… pic.twitter.com/W4rmYUxnMR
San Francisco-based Hotshot was founded a few years ago by Sastry and John Mullan, TechCrunch reports. The startup initially focused on developing AI-powered photo creation and editing tools, but later shifted to AI models for converting text into video.
The startup has raised funding from venture capitalists including Lachi Groom, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and SV Angel prior to its exit. However, the startup does not publicly disclose the amount of the investment.
In the post, Sastry thanked all his teammates, as well as customers and investors, for «taking this journey with us.» But it’s not yet clear whether the startup’s staff will be moving to xAI with Hotshot. TechCrunch reports that Sastry declined to comment.
A message appeared on Hotshot’s website that the company began ceasing new video creation on March 14. Existing customers will have until March 30 to download videos they created using the platform, the company added.
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