Elon Musk's xAI secures $6B in bid to rival ChatGPT by end of year

Despite an eight-year headstart, xAI’s Grok could become a chatGPT competitor by the end of 2024, according to Musk.

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture, xAI, has announced a $6 billion series B funding round.

The round saw participation from investors including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding.

This round marks a significant milestone for xAI, raising its valuation to $24 billion just 11 months after the company’s launch in July 2023.

In comparison, chatGPT creator OpenAI stands at a $80 billion valuation, which is over three times bigger than Musk’s xAI. OpenAI launched in December 2015, giving it an eight-year headstart over Musk’s AI company.

Musk’s xAI will deploy the funds to advance the research and development of its societally beneficial AI systems and help bring the first product to market. According to the announcement:

“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.”

Following the announcement, the billionaire tech entrepreneur reached out to his 184 million followers, encouraging them to apply to his AI company. He wrote in a May 27 X post:

“Join xAI if you believe in our mission of understanding the universe, which requires maximally rigorous pursuit of the truth, without regard to popularity or political correctness.”

xAI released its first AI chatbot on X, Grok-1, last November. Grok-1.5 was announced on April 12, introducing image-understanding abilities that enable it to process documents, diagrams, charts, screenshots, and photos. A month prior, in March, the network architecture of Grok-1 was open-sourced.

Related: Political correctness in AI systems is the biggest concern: Elon Musk

Grok could become a ChatGPT competitor by the end of 2024: Musk

Grok is still in its technological infancy compared to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. However, it could become a ChatGPT competitor by the end of this year, according to Elon Musk.

Musk said during his speech at Viva Tech Paris 2024:

“xAI is a new company so it still has a lot of catching up to do before it has an AI that is competitive with Google Deepmind and OpenAI. Maybe towards the end of the year, we will have that.”

Despite his ambitions, the billionaire tech entrepreneur has been concerned about the ongoing development of AI. In March, over 2,600 tech experts, including Musk, called for a pause on AI development, citing “profound risks to society and humanity” in an open letter.