Musk launched xAI with the aim of understanding the universe's true nature and building a company to rival industry leaders like Google's DeepMind and OpenAI. The company unveiled its chatbot, Grok, in November, which is seen as an alternative to ChatGPT. The funding will help accelerate efforts to bring Grok in line with performance from AI leaders like OpenAI’s GPT, Meta’s Llama, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini.
Key takeaways:
- Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is reportedly close to closing a funding round that would value the company at $18 billion.
- The funding round could close as soon as this week, with details such as timing, valuation and the size of the round still being discussed.
- Participants in the round reportedly include venture capital giant Sequoia Capital, which has a long history of backing Musk’s projects.
- Musk's xAI was launched with a goal to rival industry leaders like Google’s DeepMind and OpenAI, and the funding will help accelerate efforts to bring its chatbot Grok in line with performance from AI leaders.