Plan your xAI NSO exercise
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPOxAI is pre-IPO. Plan your NSO exercise tax (federal, state, FICA) at any expected valuation.
Beta · invite-only · AlphaLatitude Inc. · Free Tools
Your grant
Seeded from secondary-market data, as of May 15, 2026
Tax inputs
Hold strategy
Best after-tax payout — at year 1
$194,346
Sell + invest wins by $16,464 over Hold 1 yr.
Estimates only. Not financial advice.
Sell + invest
Best payout| Bargain element (sale − strike) | $341,400 |
| Federal | |
| State | |
| Medicare | −$4,950 |
| Additional Medicare | −$3,073 |
| Market gain over 1 yr at 10.0% | $18,131 |
| LTCG on diversified gain (fed + state + NIIT) | −$5,095 |
| Net at year 1 | $194,346 |
Sell every share immediately; invest the after-tax cash at the market return for 1 yr, then liquidate. Diversified — no single-stock concentration risk.
Exercise + hold 1 yr
| Sale proceeds (year 1) | |
| LTCG tax (federal + state + NIIT) | $0 |
| Net at year 1 | $177,882 |
Sold 2,684 shares at exercise to cover strike + tax; 2,316 shares held 1 yr for LTCG.
Social Security + Medicare are payroll taxes (collectively called FICA) — they apply because you're exercising as a current employee.
Both columns are stated in year-1 dollars: sell-now proceeds compound at the market return and pay LTCG on the gain at year 1; any cash paid out of pocket on the hold side carries the same opportunity cost.
Net at year N — by hold period
Estimates only. Excludes AMT (NSOs do not trigger AMT), state-AMT, multi-state moves, and disqualifying-disposition edge cases. Not financial advice.
You calculated one NSO decision. The beta plans NSOs alongside RSUs and ISOs in a single multi-year tax plan.
Request beta access →About xAI
xAI is a privately held AI company, incorporated in Nevada and headquartered in Palo Alto, CA.
Last reported secondary-market price: $78.28 per share (as of 2026-05-15). Your own 409A may differ.
Merged with SpaceX entity.
Equity grants at xAI typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
X.AI LLC, doing business as xAI, is a subsidiary of the American spaceflight company SpaceX working in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI) and social media. xAI's flagship products are the generative AI chatbot Grok and the social network X, which was acquired in March 2025. It has also constructed the Colossus supercomputer and launched a data center business. The company will develop a humanoid AI platform called Macrohard, which is intended for integration into a future robotic workforce across a range of applications; its current focus is developing virtual assistants. Prior to being acquired by SpaceX in February 2026, xAI's assets were part of a standalone corporation named X.AI Corp., founded by Elon Musk and 11 researchers in 2023.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Elon Musk founded xAI in March 2023 with a team of eleven researchers drawn from DeepMind, OpenAI, and Google. The company builds Grok, a conversational AI chatbot integrated into X (formerly Twitter), and operates Colossus, a Memphis-based supercluster that scaled to 555,000 NVIDIA GPUs by early 2026. Grok 3, released in February 2025, scored 93.3% on the AIME 2025 mathematics benchmark. xAI raised $6 billion in a May 2024 Series B, another $6 billion in December 2024, and a $20 billion Series E in January 2026, reaching a $230 billion valuation.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Equity comp at xAI
- In February 2026, SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock deal. Each xAI share converted into 0.1433 SpaceX shares, converting all xAI equity (vested options, unvested grants, RSUs) into SpaceX equity at the same ratio. For equity planning, employees who held xAI grants now hold SpaceX grants. Standard tax treatment (ISO for incentive stock options, NSO for non-qualified, or ordinary income on RSU vest) carried forward through the conversion with terms adjusted proportionally. Liquidity now depends on SpaceX's twice-yearly tender offer (a company-organized window where employees can sell vested shares to outside buyers) calendar and SpaceX's planned IPO, not any independent xAI path.
Sources: cnbc.com · techcrunch.com
Researched 2026-05-07.
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by xAI.
xAI NSO exercise creates ordinary income on the bargain element (federal, state, and FICA) at the price on the day you exercise. The calculator works at any valuation, so you can model your exercise cost at the current 409A FMV, an expected IPO price, or post-IPO scenarios.
Example: at xAI's last reported price of $78.28, exercising 5,000 NSOs with a $23.48 strike creates a $274,000 bargain element, taxed as ordinary income on the day you exercise. Combined federal + state + FICA on that bargain typically lands between $73,980 and $123,300 depending on your bracket and state. The calculator above computes the exact figure for your situation and compares selling now vs. holding through the long-term capital-gains threshold.
All xAI tools → · Use the generic NSO Exercise Calculator for any company.
xAI equity questions
- How is a xAI NSO exercise taxed?
- Exercising a non-qualified stock option (NSO) creates ordinary income on the bargain element (the price on the day you exercise minus your strike), subject to federal income tax, state income tax, and FICA. The calculator above computes that tax for your xAI grant and compares selling the shares now against holding past the one-year mark for long-term capital-gains treatment.
- Does xAI grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at xAI typically takes the form of incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs). Incentive stock options can trigger the alternative minimum tax (AMT) when you exercise.
- Are xAI shares eligible for QSBS?
- They might be. Qualified small business stock (QSBS) under Internal Revenue Code Section 1202 can exclude federal tax on much of the gain when shares were acquired at original issuance from a C-corporation while its gross assets were under $50 million, and held at least five years. Whether your xAI shares qualify turns on when you acquired them and the company's asset size at that time.
One piece of the puzzle.
OptionsAhoy plans your xAI equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.