Elon Musk founded xAI last summer, and today the company announced a $6 billion funding round, saying the money will help the company “bring its first products to market, build advanced infrastructure, and accelerate research and development of future technologies.”
Previously, xAI has released Grok, a more advanced version of OpenAI's ChatGPT, available via X (formerly Twitter), and the chatbot is currently only available to X Premium subscribers.
xAI said the funding comes from multiple sources, including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Last year, xAI sought to raise up to $1 billion in equity funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a few months ago, Financial Times … was reported. $6 billionMusk denied the reports at the time.
The AI race for chips, talent and technology won't be cheap, with big tech companies pouring billions of dollars into AI startups like Anthropic, in addition to the resources that Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are pouring into their own AI projects.
Outside of xAI and OpenAI, Musk said he would “prefer to build products outside of Tesla” when it comes to AI and robotics unless he is given more authority. Tesla shareholders begin voting this week on whether to reinstate Musk's $56 billion compensation package ahead of the company's annual meeting on June 13.
