Elon Musk’s xAI startup trying to raise $1billion

Some write it X.ai — others xAI — the SEC filing is X.AI Corp. However you write the name of this company, Elon Musk founded xAI back in April 2023 and is attempting to raise $1 billion in equity investments. The information comes from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing says that Musk is an executive officer and director of X.AI.

Additional executives are Jared Birchall, a former Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley exec, who is reported to be the manager of the Elon Musk family office.

The 52-year-old billionaire’s start-up is seeking funding for xAI amid intensifying competition in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector. Recently, Musk has been very critical of OpenAI, one of the biggest players in the space and the company behind the hugely successful ChatGPT chatbot. As well as AI development, the world’s richest man’s other business interests include Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter), which he owns.

Elon Musk’s xAI company process

According to the SEC, xAI will only accept a minimum of $2 million from outside investors — and the insurer has to “enter into a binding and enforceable agreement for the purchase and sale of the total remaining to be sold, listed above.” Above where? Axios noted, “it sure seems like the rest of the billion is already a done deal!”

Axios also noted that during its “Axios AI+ event in San Francisco, they asked Sequoia Capital’s Sonya Huang and a16z’s Anjney Midha if they were investing in X-ai. They both declined to comment.

According to the xAI company website, its purpose is to “understand the true nature of the universe.” The AI chatbot, named Grok pulls real-time information from Twitter to power responses — but only Premium Plus subscribers have access to it.

Musk appeared to deny the reports by saying on X, “Nothing is being sought from anyone.”