Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6 billion to expand AI capabilities

Elon Musk’s AI company called xAI has raised $6 billion, as it plans to expand its supercomputer to house at least one million graphics processing units (GPUs).

According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), investors gave a minimum of $77,593 per the filing.

A Wall Street Journal report mentioned that Valor Equity Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz were likely to contribute to the round, along with Qatar Investment Authority, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.

The new cash brings xAI’s total raised to $12 billion, adding to the $6 billion tranche xAI raised earlier this year.

In May this year, the AI company behind Grok raised $6 billion to accelerate the research and development of future technologies. The company said the funds from the Series B funding round will be used to take xAI's first products to market and build advanced infrastructure.

"xAI is primarily focused on the development of advanced AI systems that are truthful, competent, and maximally beneficial for all of humanity. The company's mission is to understand the true nature of the universe," the company said in a blog post.

Earlier this year, xAI raised $500 million in commitments from investors toward a $1 billion goal.

Founded in 2023, xAI unveiled its first AI product in November last year and recently announced the Grok-1.5 model with long context capability, as well as Grok-1.5V with image understanding.

Meanwhile, the tech billionaire has filed for a preliminary injunction against Sam Altman-run OpenAI for alleged anti-competitive behaviour.

The motion for an injunction accuses OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, Microsoft, LinkedIn co-founder and former OpenAI board member Reid Hoffman, and former OpenAI board member and Microsoft VP Dee Templeton of “various illicit activities and seeks to halt them,” according to reports.

The allegations also include converting OpenAI’s governance structure to a for-profit and “transferring any material assets, including intellectual property owned, held, or controlled by OpenAI, Inc., its subsidiaries, or affiliates.”

OpenAI said in a statement that “Elon’s fourth attempt, which again recycles the same baseless complaints, continues to be utterly without merit.” It had earlier called the lawsuit “blusterous” and baseless.