Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, is actively seeking $1 billion (£0.8 billion) in equity financing, as the billionaire entrepreneur strives to compete with industry rivals such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google in the fiercely contested field of artificial intelligence.
xAI has already secured $135 million (£107 million) from investors, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company aims to attain a total of $1 billion in equity financing to propel its endeavors in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
The competition to develop generative AI, capable of producing convincing text, images, and audio from simple prompts, has heightened as major players in Silicon Valley vie for supremacy. This race gained momentum following the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November of last year, prompting significant investments and collaborations within the industry.
After the notable impact of ChatGPT, Microsoft announced a substantial deepening of its partnership with OpenAI in January, backed by a substantial $10 billion investment commitment.
Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX CEO, and owner of the X platform (formerly known as Twitter), co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but departed three years later. In July, Musk launched xAI, and recently, the company unveiled its inaugural AI model, a chatbot named Grok, characterized by a “rebellious streak.”
Grok is set to be accessible to specific premium subscribers on the X platform. Musk previously stated that investors in the platform would possess a 25% ownership stake in xAI. However, despite his involvement in the AI race, Musk has consistently warned about the potential risks of artificial intelligence, acknowledging it as “one of the biggest threats to humanity.”
Amazon has also joined the AI race, announcing a significant investment of up to $4 billion in the startup Anthropic, which has developed its generative AI chatbot named Claude. Anthropic stands as a key competitor to OpenAI in the burgeoning AI sector. In the past year, Google invested $300 million in Anthropic, solidifying its position in the industry, with plans to train models on Google’s chips and leverage its cloud services. The AI sector’s continued growth and competition underscore the strategic importance of securing substantial funding for advancements and breakthroughs in the field.
Carlo Juancho FuntanillaFrontend Developer, WordPress, Shopify
Contributing Editor
AMA ACLC San Pablo
