Elon Musk's AI startup seeks to raise $1 billion
Kyiv • UNN
Elon Musk's AI startup xAI aims to raise $1 billion, having already received $135 million. xAI, competing with OpenAI, has released Grok
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, plans to raise $1 billion, according to a new report from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), UNN reports citing The Wall Street Journal.
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Musk launched xAI in July, and the company said its mission is to "advance our collective understanding of the universe." Musk spent several months recruiting researchers and saw the new initiative as a competitor to OpenAI, whose ChatGPT caused an artificial intelligence craze in the tech industry, the publication points out.
According to documentation filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, xAI has already raised nearly $135 million from four investors.
Musk has also stated that the world needs an alternative to Alphabet's Google AI, which helped launch the modern era of artificial intelligence, and Microsoft, which is OpenAI's largest investor.
Musk co-founded OpenAI, but left the company after a dispute over its control and management. Since then, he has criticized OpenAI's ChatGPT as being infected with, among other things, what he called "the awakened mind virus."
Last month, xAI launched its first product, a bot called Grok. The company said that Grok answers burning questions that most other artificial intelligence systems reject, and warned: "Please do not use it if you hate humor!"
xAI said that Grok gains access to real-time knowledge of the world through X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk acquired over a year ago. The company says on its website that it is separate from the X social network, but plans to work closely with X, Musk's car company Tesla, and other companies.
In a November post on X, Musk said that investors in the X social network would own 25% of xAI. Recently, he said that access to Grok is gradually being granted to people who acquire a Premium+ subscription through the X platform, which starts at $16 per month.
Although Musk has long been trying to influence the development of artificial intelligence, he has also expressed concern about potential security risks and called for government regulation.
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