Elon Musk Looking for $6 Billion to Develop AI Outside Tesla

Tesla is out. xAI is in.

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Elon Musk's new AI venture xAI is attempting to raise up to $6 million in funding, the Financial Times reports, at a proposed valuation of $20 billion.

That would put its value well short of OpenAI, which was recently estimated to be valued at or above $100 billion, but roughly on par with OpenAI competitor Anthropic.

According to the report, the company is hoping to raise money by talking to wealth fund managers in the Middle East and approaching offices in Hong Kong.

But whether Musk's clout alone will be able to convince investors to join him remains to be seen. So far, xAI has released "Grok," a foul-mouthed, dad joke-generating chatbot that was allegedly trained on tweets.

Then there's the current controversy over Musk angering investors by threatening to move AI projects away from Tesla, which could help explain his startup's latest round of funding.

Investor Appetite

The news comes after Musk denied a Bloomberg report that stated xAI had raised half of a $1 billion round of funding last week.

"This is simply not accurate," he tweeted in response.

A December Securities and Exchange Commission filing made under the billionaire's name states that xAI had raised $135 million from four unnamed investors.

Musk was also recently accused of "blackmailing" Tesla investors after threatening to spin off AI projects from his EV maker unless he gets to control 25 percent of the company.

"I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having about 25 percent voting control," he wrote in a January 15 post. "Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned."

Meanwhile, the mercurial CEO has claimed his new startup is aiming to "understand reality" and the "true nature of the universe."

The company, which was founded in July, has used plenty of arguably meaningless and pseudo-philosophical language to sell investors on its premise.

"What are the most fundamental unanswered questions?" reads the official xAI account's first-ever tweet.

The company's "Grok" chatbot has already wreaked havoc by first "going woke," turning on its creator, and even accusing him of going to court for pedophilia.

Meanwhile, Musk has vowed to make the potty-mouthed assistant more "anti-woke" and take "immediate action to shift Grok closer to politically neutral."

In short, are the company's chaotic efforts really enough to convince deep-pocketed investors?

According to the Financial Times, xAI is "still testing investor appetite" with its current round of fundraising.

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