Elon Musk Is Attempting to Get His Different Firms to Foot the Invoice for xAI

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about to speculate billions in his synthetic intelligence firm, and now he’s hoping Tesla will do the identical. 

Buyers acquainted with the matter instructed The Wall Street Journal that the rocket firm SpaceX has agreed to speculate a whopping $2 billion in xAI, the Musk-led agency behind the controversial massive language mannequin Grok. This funding makes up nearly half of the $5 billion of equity that the AI firm raised final month. 

Unsurprisingly, the richest man on the planet isn’t glad. On Sunday, he posted on his social media platform X (previously Twitter) that Tesla shareholders will vote on whether or not they can even put money into his AI firm. 

He responded to an X consumer asking a few Tesla funding in xAI by posting, “It’s lower than me. If it was as much as me, Tesla would have invested in xAI way back. We could have a shareholder vote on the matter.”

xAI merged with X earlier this 12 months, placing it at a $113 billion valuation. The AI firm is now reportedly concentrating on a $200 billion valuation in its subsequent spherical of fundraising.

This comes as xAI can be reportedly burning by money at a speedy price. In response to Bloomberg, xAI is bleeding roughly $1 billion per month. Musk himself has since responded to the article as “nonsense.” 

Since its launch, xAI has been racing to meet up with OpenAI and different trade leaders. The corporate unveiled its newest mannequin, Grok 4, this month and claimed that it’s the “most clever mannequin on the planet.” Musk additionally launched at the moment a brand new “companions” characteristic permitting customers to speak to Grok through 3D-animated characters.

Nevertheless, Grok has not been with out its points. Earlier this month, an replace meant to handle what Musk described as a “center-left bias” as an alternative induced Grok to generate antisemitic propaganda, even referring to itself as “MechaHitler.” Shortly after, the corporate mentioned it had taken steps to take away the offensive posts and had banned Grok from using hate speech on X. 

As Musk seeks new funding for the AI mannequin, he has turned to considered one of his previous playbooks — shuffling round funds and assets amongst his enterprise empire. As an illustration, in 2009, Musk borrowed $20 million from SpaceX to help fund Tesla. The rocket firm additionally offered tools for Musk’s tunneling startup, The Boring Company. Extra just lately, Musk took a $1 billion mortgage from SpaceX around the time he bought Twitter.