Elon Musk’s startup xAI is seeking up to $1 billion in investments; see details

Elon Musk's startup xAI, focused on artificial intelligence, has submitted paperwork to the US securities authority aiming to gather up to $1 billion through an equity offering, as per a Tuesday filing reported by Reuters.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company has secured $134.7 million in equity financing from a total offering pool of $1 billion.

In the startup landscape this year, fundraising for AI companies remains promising, notably highlighted by OpenAI's successful launch of the widely used ChatGPT and its substantial $10 billion backing from Microsoft. Yet, regulators express concerns about the potential misuse of AI in spreading false information.

Musk has been outspoken about his vision for crafting safer AI. During a Twitter Spaces event earlier this year, he emphasized xAI's intent to foster a "maximally curious" AI rather than directly programming moral guidelines into its systems.

The entrepreneur, critical of Big Tech's AI initiatives for what he sees as excessive censorship, introduced xAI in July as a "maximum truth-seeking AI" to compete with Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing AI.

Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, the company behind ChatGPT, which triggered global interest in generative AI technology. However, he stepped down from its board in 2018.

Recently, xAI rolled out "Grok," a chatbot challenging OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Musk announced that the AI startup will be incorporated into his social media platform, X, and will also be available as a standalone application in November.

The team driving xAI, established in July this year, comprises talents from Google's DeepMind, Microsoft's Windows parent company, and other leading AI research entities.

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