xAI: Elon Musk’s AI startup plans billions in funding

Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI plans to raise $1 billion in capital to challenge rivals like OpenAI in the fast-growing field of generative AI, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the Financial Times. The company has already raised $135 million from investors, its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission says. It asks investors for a minimum deposit of two million dollars.

Musk was previously a co-founder at OpenAI

Generative AI companies, whose technology can automatically generate human-like text and images, have raised billions of dollars this year after Microsoft-backed OpenAI launched its ChatGPT language model in November 2022. However, critics warn that too much hype could lead to a bubble.

Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but left the company three years later. OpenAI received $10 billion from Microsoft earlier this year. Meanwhile, Google recently committed to a $2 billion investment in Anthropic. This is a startup co-founded by former OpenAI executives. Other Silicon Valley giants like Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta have invested billions in their own AI products.

AI from xAI trained with content on X

Musk founded xAI in July to “understand the true nature of the universe.” Last month, the company released its first AI model, a “sarcastic” chatbot called Grok that was trained on Twitter/X. Grok will be available to certain premium X subscribers who pay around $16 per month. Last month, Musk said investors in X would own around 25 percent of xAI.

He recently said that “AI will be able to do everything” and will eliminate the need for human labor. However, he has also been critical of the area and signed a letter calling for a pause in the development of advanced AI systems. The fundraising effort follows recent chaos at OpenAI, when CEO Sam Altman was unexpectedly fired and then quickly returned. The reasons for the turmoil are still not entirely clear.