Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture, xAI, has successfully secured $6 billion in a recent financing round, marking one of the most significant investments in this burgeoning sector. This capital influx positions xAI to intensify its competition with industry heavyweights like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google.
Prominent investors such as Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, and Kingdom Holding participated in xAI’s Series B round, as disclosed in a company blog post.
This funding achievement corroborates TechCrunch’s April report, which indicated that xAI was aiming to raise $6 billion. At the time, TechCrunch noted that the round’s completion would elevate xAI’s valuation to $18 billion. However, the current valuation and whether social network X also participated in this round remains undisclosed by xAI, a startup that was spun off from X just last year.
Musk, a pioneering figure in the AI industry, is also at the helm of Tesla, the leading electric vehicle manufacturer known for its autonomous driving technology. His early investment career includes significant contributions to OpenAI, where he invested tens of millions of dollars. Nonetheless, Musk’s relationship with OpenAI has soured; in March, he filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and co-founder Sam Altman, accusing them of deviating from their original mission and functioning as a “closed-source de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft.
After launching xAI, Musk introduced Grok 1.0, a chatbot designed to rival ChatGPT, in November. Subsequently, the company offered this model to Premium+ users on X for $16 a month. In April, xAI debuted the improved Grok 1.5 model, extending access to Premium users on X.
The newly acquired funds will be utilized to bring xAI’s initial products to market, develop sophisticated infrastructure, and accelerate the research and development of future technologies, according to the company’s blog post.
