You're looking for X on your brokerage app and coming up empty. Or worse, you’re seeing "U.S. Steel" and wondering if Elon Musk started making I-beams. It's confusing. Honestly, the short answer is no. X (formerly Twitter) is not on the stock market. It hasn't been for a while.
If you’re seeing a big "X" ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange, that’s United States Steel Corporation. It's a century-old industrial giant that has nothing to do with social media or Grok. Buying that by mistake is a classic "fat finger" trade that happens more often than you'd think.
The Day the Bird Stopped Flying
Back in 2013, Twitter was the darling of Wall Street. It traded under the ticker TWTR. If you owned it then, you were part of a public company that had to answer to the SEC and thousands of shareholders. But everything changed on October 27, 2022.
Elon Musk walked into the San Francisco headquarters carrying a porcelain sink, and by that evening, the company was private. He paid $54.20 per share, totaling roughly $44 billion. The moment that deal closed, the stock was delisted. It vanished from the NYSE.
When a company goes private, it basically "goes dark" to the public. They don't have to report quarterly earnings. They don't have to hold public conference calls where analysts grill the CEO about ad revenue. For Musk, this was the point. He wanted to overhaul the platform—renaming it X in 2023—without the constant pressure of a fluctuating stock price.
Who Actually Owns X Right Now?
Since you can't buy it on E*TRADE, who does own it? It's a bit of a club.
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Musk is the majority owner, but he didn't write a $44 billion check alone. He sold billions in Tesla stock, sure, but he also brought in big-name partners. We're talking about Larry Ellison (Oracle founder), Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, and Jack Dorsey, who actually rolled over his original Twitter shares into the private entity.
In a weird twist that happened in early 2025, X Corp. was actually acquired by Musk’s other venture, xAI. So now, X is essentially a subsidiary of an AI company. This move was basically about data. xAI needs the real-time human conversation on X to train its models, like Grok-3.
Can You Still Get a Piece of the Action?
Kinda. But it’s not easy.
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Since X is private, you can’t just click "buy." You'd usually need to be an "accredited investor"—someone with a net worth over $1 million (excluding their home) or a high annual income. If that's you, you might find shares on secondary markets like:
- Hiive
- Forge Global
- EquityZen
These platforms allow former employees or early investors to sell their private shares. Just be careful. The valuation has been a roller coaster. While Musk bought it for $44 billion, internal documents and bank valuations in late 2024 and 2025 suggested the value had dipped significantly, with some estimates placing it closer to $15-$20 billion before the xAI merger helped stabilize things.
Will X Ever Go Public Again?
Wall Street loves a comeback. There is always talk of an "IPO" (Initial Public Offering).
Musk has hinted that once the "Everything App" vision (payments, video, AI, and social) is actually working and profitable, a return to the public markets could happen. But don't hold your breath for 2026. The current focus is clearly on integrating with xAI and building out the financial tech side of the platform.
If it does return, it likely won't be as "Twitter." It would be a new listing, possibly under a new ticker, assuming they can wrestle the "X" symbol away from whatever entity holds it then (U.S. Steel was acquired by Nippon Steel recently, leaving the "X" ticker in a bit of a limbo).
What You Should Do Instead
If you’re looking to invest in the social media or AI space right now since you can’t buy X, you’ve got a few options that are actually liquid:
- Meta (META): They’re the 800-pound gorilla. With Threads, Instagram, and their own massive Llama AI models, they are the most direct competitor to what X is trying to do.
- Alphabet (GOOGL): If you care about the AI side of X, Google is the obvious play.
- ARK Venture Fund: Some public venture funds actually hold stakes in private companies like X or SpaceX. This is a "backdoor" way for regular investors to get exposure, though it's only a small percentage of the total fund.
Keep an eye on xAI news. Since X is now tucked under the xAI umbrella, any move that company makes toward the stock market will be the signal you're waiting for. For now, just remember: that "X" stock you see on your screen isn't the app in your pocket.
Next Steps for You:
Check your current portfolio for any "accidental" U.S. Steel (X) holdings if you meant to buy the social media platform. If you’re serious about private equity, look into the requirements for accredited investor status to see if secondary markets like Forge Global are an option for you. Otherwise, set a Google Alert for "xAI IPO" to stay ahead of any future listing news.