xAI, the AI company founded by Elon Musk, has acquired Hotshot, a startup that specializes in developing AI-powered video generation tools, similar to those offered by OpenAI’s Sora.

The acquisition was announced by Akash Sastry, Hotshot’s CEO and co-founder, in a post on X on Monday, where he shared the news with the public.

In his post, Sastry reflected on the company’s achievements, stating, “Over the past 2 years, our small team has successfully developed three video foundation models: Hotshot-XL, Hotshot Act One, and Hotshot. Through this process, we have gained valuable insights into the potential impact of these models on global education, entertainment, communication, and productivity in the years to come. We are excited to further scale our efforts as part of xAI, utilizing the world’s largest cluster, Colossus.”

Headquartered in New York, Hotshot was founded by John Mullan and Duncan Crawbuck several years ago. Initially, the company focused on creating AI-powered photo creation and editing tools but later shifted its focus to text-to-video AI models.

Prior to its acquisition, Hotshot secured investments from prominent venture capitalists, including Lachy Groom, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and SV Angel, demonstrating the company’s potential and promise in the AI-powered video generation space.