Elon Musk has just raised half of the billion-dollar funding round he aims for xAI, his artificial intelligence (AI) startup launched last year. Driven by the dazzling success of his chatbot Grok, Musk is aiming for an astronomical valuation of at least 15 billion.
An express multi-billion round of funding
According to information from Bloomberg, xAI, Elon Musk’s startup specializing in artificial intelligence, has already raised $500 million in commitments from renowned investors. The goal is to reach the symbolic billion-dollar milestone in just a few weeks.
From donors approached, we find Silicon Valley pundits having already financed the turbulent takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk last year. Suffice to say that they no longer hesitate to follow the billionaire in his craziest bets.
The young shoot is even discussing an astronomical valuation of between 15 and 20 billion dollars. Figures that make you dizzy when you know that xAI has only been in existence for one year and has only one product to its credit: Grok.
Grok, the AI chatbot powered by big data from tweets
What makes Grok strong is its privileged access to the public stream of tweets. Unlike OpenAI’s ChatGPT, it can draw on recent data to fuel its conversations.
What’s more, this tip creates sparks. In just a few months, Grok went viral, attracting investors by the dozens. For them, this is the perfect opportunity to focus on next-generation AI, in an ultra-competitive sector where Microsoft and Google have taken a head start.
Unsurprisingly, we will find among these privileged investors the same big names having already bet on the tumultuous takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk. Larry Ellison, the Sequoia Capital fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity Management & Research Co. and even the Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal: all have priority to acquire a stake in xAI.
They should invest at least 25% of the amount injected into Twitter, in exchange for shares or computing power. The perfect opportunity for these funds to accelerate their own data-intensive AI projects. The final deal should be completed within two weeks.
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