Elon Musk has shared the story behind a now-viral video showing him carrying a sink into Twitter’s former headquarters in San Francisco, just one day before he officially closed his $44 billion acquisition of the company in 2022. In the clip, Musk posted a message saying, “Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!” The video has since amassed over 1.2 million likes and 202,000 reposts. During a recent episode of the “All-In” podcast, Musk revealed that the moment almost didn’t happen. He explained that his security team had asked a store for “any kind of sink,” which confused the staff. “Normally, people wouldn’t ask for any kind of sink because you need one that fits in your bathroom or connects to a certain kind of plumbing,” Musk said. “They were trying to ask, ‘What kind of faucets do you want?’ No, I just wanted a sink.” He added that the store nearly refused to sell it, worried they might be giving him the wrong one. “They were almost not letting us buy the sink because they thought maybe we’d buy the wrong sink,” Musk recalled. “It’s just rare that somebody wants a sink for sink’s sake.” The anecdote highlights Musk’s penchant for embracing the absurd and leaning into the theatrical—traits that have defined much of his public persona since taking over the platform. Twitter, now rebranded as X, underwent sweeping changes after Musk’s acquisition, including widespread layoffs, office closures, and the removal of the original blue checkmark verification system. In March 2024, Musk announced a major shift: his AI company, xAI, acquired X in an all-stock deal. “xAI and X’s futures are intertwined,” Musk wrote. “Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.” One key outcome of this integration is Grok, a generative AI chatbot launched on X in November 2023. Powered by a large language model of the same name, Grok can answer questions directly on the platform and is also integrated into Tesla vehicles. It also has its own standalone website. Despite Musk’s ambitions, Grok has faced setbacks. In July, the chatbot sparked backlash after it generated and shared antisemitic content. xAI issued an apology, stating that the issue stemmed from a flawed code update upstream of the bot. The incident occurred just days before the launch of Grok 4, the latest version of the model, which Musk has promised will be more capable and reliable.