Since the debut of ChatGPT last year, the tech landscape has been abuzz with efforts to develop their iterations of generative AI (GenAI). Giants like Google, Alibaba, Elon Musk‘s enterprises, and Meta are actively pursuing their counterparts to ChatGPT. Meanwhile, startups such as Anthropic, backed by $300 million from Google, and Stability AI are also making significant strides in this transformative sector.
Now, Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and owner of X Corp, is poised to secure $1 billion for his latest venture, xAI, a prospective competitor to OpenAI. According to an official filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last week, Musk’s AI company has successfully garnered almost $135 million, requiring an additional $865 million from investors to reach its ambitious $1 billion target.
According to reports, Musk may have finalised some major deals, amounting to billions, in order to increase the full funds needed.
Preview of chatbot
Recently, Elon Musk offered a preview of his company’s chatbot – dubbed Grok, which is similar to ChatGPT. It was stated that the model has been trained with data collected from X (formerly Twitter) bought by Musk for $44 billion in 2022. As per Musk, Grok is both smarter and funnier than its rivals and can answer spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.
At the time of previewing the chatbot, Musk said that the xAI startup would be integrated into his social media platform X, and also be available as a standalone app.
The tech titan started the company after tech giants continued to invest heavily in the Gen AI technology. Elon Musk started xAI in July after hiring researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Tesla and the University of Toronto. The mission of the company is to “understand the true nature of the universe.”
Funding amidst chaos at OpenAI
Musk’s xAI funding round comes at a time when OpenAI recently witnessed a chaotic phase wherein it saw CEO Sam Altman being sacked and his subsequent return as the CEO within a few days.
Notably, Elon Musk was also a co-founder of OpenAI but stepped down from the firm’s board in 2018 to avoid conflicts of interest with Tesla which had its own AI operations.
