Elon Musk's AI company xAI is reportedly on the brink of raising significant capital from Silicon Valley investors. The company aimed to secure USD 6 billion on a USD 18 billion pre-money valuation, with the deal which is expected to be finalised in the coming weeks.
Reports from The Information and TechCrunch suggest that the founder is set to hit the direct competition with OpenAI, with his booming AI technology.
With just ten months of existence, xAI has been seeking to challenge the competitor OpenAI, a company co-founded by Musk himself, and the founder of ChatGPT. Musk has been publicly criticising OpenAI's shift from a nonprofit model to a more profit-oriented approach which has fueled his determination to rival the organization.
Integration with Musk's ventures: What’s the goal?
As per the Mashable report, it was stated that the investors are presented with the vision of xAI which integrates with Musk's various ventures seamlessly, including SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink and The Boring Company.
The pitch further emphasized that the xAI has the potential to ‘master the physical world’ and contribute the ambitious projects like advanced robotics and self-driving cars.
What support does it have from Silicon Valley?
Elon Musk and his connections with Silicon Valley are proving to be beneficial, despite his recent controversies. VC firms further include Future Ventures which was co-founded by Steve Jurvetson (Musk's associate) and it has been reportedly participating in the funding round as well.
Challenges and criticisms
It has been reported that xAI's primary offering is Grok, which is an AI chatbot integrated into Musk's social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter). However, Grok has faced many criticisms for its inaccuracies, like failing to distinguish between real news and fake news and further giving out false information.
Despite Grok's shortcomings, Musk has been leveraging the hype surrounding xAI and has been bolstering the performance of X. Furthermore, with X holding a stake in xAI, Musk hopes that it will be a success in translating it into a profitable platform for his social media venture.
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