An xAI funding update by Bloomberg has reportedly been denied by billionaire Elon Musk himself, stating it was simply inaccurate to claim that his AI startup company has secured funding halfway to the firm's $1 billion goal.
Musk reportedly responded on X to a user's comment referencing a piece of news from Bloomberg News. Bloomberg claimed that this funding update may change in the coming weeks, but Bloomberg had said that xAI is in negotiations for a $15 billion to $20 billion valuation.
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C.E.O. of Tesla, Chief Engineer of SpaceX, and C.T.O. of Elon Musk speak during the New York Times annual DealBook summit on November 29, 2023, in New York City.
The Bloomberg article stated that the story's unnamed sources were prohibited from discussing the transaction; however, it also noted that the report has since been referred to as "fake news."
In the following weeks, Musk and investors are expected to complete the investment conditions, and some parties are reportedly considering obtaining processing power instead of or in addition to xAI stock shares.
As per reports citing an SEC filing, xAI raised $865.3 million in unregistered stock in December, with sales of $134.7 million already beginning as of November 29 of last year.
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Elon Musk's X Updates
This is not the first time the Billionaire has denied reports and updates regarding his AI company through his social media X as Reuters reported that last December, just one day after the business filed with the US Securities Commission to raise $1 billion in a stock offering, Musk said that his artificial intelligence company was not soliciting any money.
This post from Elon Musk also comes after he recently stated that before the electric car manufacturer expands its robotics and artificial intelligence initiatives, Musk would prefer to have a 25% voting share in the company, thus seeking expanded voting control.
xAI and Grok
Musk formed xAI last year after the Billionaire subsequently parted ways with OpenAI over disagreements about best capitalizing on the technology.
Headlining xAI is Grok, a chatbot built by xAI that uses postings from social media on X, a platform that Musk also controls. Grok can obtain more recent data for its responses compared to other chatbots because of such resources. Fortune reports that Grok is also a way to promote subscriptions for X by acting as a feature of the social network's Premium+ tier.
Despite xAI being a completely separate company from Elon Musk's X, Bloomberg notes that in November, Musk declared that X equity investors would hold a quarter of xAI. This means those investors are asked to invest in xAI at least 25% of what they put in X.
While both xAI and X have observable connections with one another, the report states that it is unclear how the witty AI bot fits into the more extensive portfolio of Tesla autonomous driving technologies, Neuralink human-machine brain connections, and humanoid Optimus robots that Elon Musk has unveiled, which begs the issue of how important and severe xAI is.
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