Telegram founder Pavel Durov jumped the gun on Wednesday, hyping up a juicy partnership with Elon Musk’s xAI to bring Grok to the messaging giant’s billion-plus users this summer. The internet collectively gasped. TON rallied. Everyone got excited.
There was just one tiny problem.
“No deal has been signed,” Elon Musk casually posted later that evening, effectively tossing a cold bucket of logic on Durov’s dopamine-packed announcement.
No deal has been signed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 28, 2025
TON, the token tied to Telegram, promptly faceplanted from $3.60 to $3.28. That’s a quick $0.32 dive after riding a 14% intraday rally, all based on vibes and premature victory laps.
#TON open interest spiked 33% in 24h, from $143M to $190M — the highest since Feb 18, per Glassnode.
— HodlFM Team (@Hodl_fm) May 29, 2025
Despite a price drop, OI stayed high — a pattern that’s often followed by corrections.$TON dumped 8% after Musk tweeted no deal was signed with Telegram, but quickly rebounded pic.twitter.com/i4V5SHUCpT
$300 Million Promises and a $1.5 Billion Question Mark
According to Durov, the deal, which, if actually signed, would give Telegram 50% of revenue from xAI subscriptions sold through its platform, plus $300 million in cash and equity, is still in the “agreed in principle” stage. Translation: it’s not real yet, but the dream is alive.
All of this, by the way, is happening as Telegram is reportedly looking to raise $1.5 billion via a bond offering backed by the likes of BlackRock, Mubadala, and Citadel. Big names, big numbers, now they just need to actually ink that AI partnership.
Until then, Grok’s debut on Telegram remains a theoretical summer fling. Musk and Durov may be emoji-handshaking in public, but the lawyers haven’t joined the chat just yet.
Kristian Koch
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