Elon Musk's AI company xAI 'raising $6b' in funding

Tech billionaire Elon Musk's 10-month-old AI company, xAI, is raising $6 billion with an $18 billion pre-money valuation, according to reports by TechCrunch and The Information.

The reports suggest that Musk who helped create Sam Altman's OpenAI in 2015, has recently unveiled his AI company's ChatGPT-like chatbot, "Grok" and is expected to seal the deal in the upcoming weeks.

"Sequoia Capital and Future Ventures, the venture fund co-founded by Musk's long-time friend Steve Jurvetson, are participating in the round," the report mentioned.

Other participants are likely to include Valor Equity Partners and Gigafund VC firms.

After his departure from OpenAI in 2018, Musk, 52, has criticised OpenAI for its change in ethos.

He announced Grok last year amid the rising popularity of the usage of AI across tech companies. His AI company now looks to compete with OpenAI.

According to Mashable, xAI is marketed as an AI brand that will integrate with Musk's other companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink.

The company aims to "master the physical world" by training on data from all of Musk's companies and aiding Tesla in creating self-driving cars and its robot Optimus.

xAI's only real product at this point is Grok, an AI chatbot integrated into Musk's own social media company X, formerly Twitter, which is also one of the AI company's shareholders.

According to experts at Mashable, the chatbot has not performed well.

The reports also revealed that xAI is currently hiring engineers and designers, apart from people for product, data and infrastructure verticals.

The AI company is offering cash and equity-based compensation,medical, dental and vision insurance and unlimited paid time off as employee benefits.

AI chatbot "Grok 2" is now in training and will "exceed all expectations" when it is released, said Musk.