Kalshi and xAI have been a will-they-won’t-they love story for the last two months. It appears that, yes, they will.
Two months ago, the prediction market operator’s CEO Tarek Mansour announced it was the new official partner of the Elon Musk-founded company. Within 24 hours of Kalshi confirming the deal to SBC Americas, Mansour deleted his posts and Kalshi rescinded its announcement. The company told SBC Americas in a second statement that there were “miscommunications about the timing of the announcement.”
Nine weeks later, both xAI and Kalshi posted on social media to announce that they have in fact agreed to a deal, this time for real.
“Effective immediately, Kalshi and xAI are partnering to bring Grok to prediction markets,” the xAI account stated on X, formerly Twitter. “Two of the fastest growing companies in America are now on the same team.”
Two minutes later, Kalshi’s official account reposted xAI’s post with a handshake emoji, confirming the collaboration. A Kalshi spokesperson told SBC Americas on Thursday that the company has indeed partnered with xAI, but did not offer any more details about the mechanics of the deal or the May situation.
The video shared by xAI suggested the heart of the partnership is that X’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok will help to inform Kalshi users in their trading on things such as politics, current events and sports by generating summaries of the markets.
AI will be critical to prediction markets, says Mansour
As he did the first time around before deleting his posts amid the May confusion, Mansour posted to vaunt the deal.
“What once seemed crazy is now obvious,” Mansour wrote on July 24. “When we launched Kalshi, people thought we were nuts. Today, prediction markets are one of the most powerful tools for understanding the world. We’ve always admired those who defy the odds – and no one embodies that more than Elon and xAI.
“In just two years, xAI went from an idea to running the largest training center on the planet. The pace of innovation is hard to believe. And AI will be critical to the evolution of prediction markets. Together, we’re building at xAI’s pace to shape the future of this ecosystem.”
Three’s a crowd
The video shared by xAI, suggested the heart of the partnership is that X’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok will help to inform Kalshi users in their trading on things such as politics, current events and sports by generating summaries of the markets.
Had the deal between Kalshi and xAI actually materialized in May, Kalshi would have been the first prediction market to officially associate itself with Musk’s X. Now, though, it is second to the plate.
That’s because on June 6, Polymarket announced a deal that made it X’s “official prediction market partner,” per a press release. The comnpany said at the time that Polymarket and X were collaborating to deliver an integrated product that provides Polymarket real-time data and insights using X data and Grok’s help. It seems that deal did not include any kind of exclusivity when it comes to xAI.
xAI’s other partner Polymarket closes on US return
Kalshi, Polymarket and others including Crypto.com offer a range of event contract trading in several markets. Since 2022, Polymarket has not technically been allowed to compete with Kalshi in the U.S. due to a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
However, after multiple investigations into whether it was still taking American customers’ money were ended by the Trump administration thsi month, Polymarket appears to be on the verge of stepping back onto U.S. land. This week, it bought CTFC-registered derivatives exchange QCX and its affiliated clearinghouse, ostensibly giving it a path to authorized U.S. activity again.
“The acquisition of the QCEX entities paves the way for U.S. users to access Polymarket in the near future within a fully regulated, U.S.-compliant framework,” said Polymarket in a statement. Founder and CEO Shayne Coplan added that his company is “laying the foundation to bring Polymarket home” to the U.S. market.
Earlier this week, Coplan labeled Kalshi “a Polymarket copycat” in an interview with CNBC.
