Musk created an artificial intelligence startup 10 months ago intending to let researchers work on  existential problems. He also mentioned joining the startup with widely known social Media platform  X (formerly known as Twitter). Later On, xAI unveiled an AI chatbot exclusively available for X’s  premium subscribers known as Grok. xAI is a startup company working on building artificial  intelligence to accelerate human scientific discovery focusing on the mission to advance collective  understanding of the universe. 

Image source: Wikipedia 

$6B funding for a startup may sound a bit unbelievable but looking at the technical team members  you will know the reason why investors are trusting them with their money. “Grok” The AI chatbot  available in X (formerly known as Twitter) for premium users in partnership with xAI was developed  very fast. The reason is simple it is the very in-demand team of the absolute best programmers  working with Musk. Now let’s take a little peek into members working for xAI. The startup is led by none other than Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Other technical team members have also  worked at DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Tesla, and the University of  Toronto. All these innovative techniques and analyses such as Transformer-XL, Autoformalization, the  Memorizing Transformer, Batch Size Scaling, μTransfer, and SimCLR were introduced by these  members. In addition, they have worked on and led the development of some of the largest  breakthroughs in the field including AlphaCode, Inception, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4. Now you know why  everyone wanted to get a share in this “startup”. 

With X already being a shareholder, the deal for xAI was originally supposed to raise up to $3B, but  due to a sudden perk of interest from investors and the general public, the price was raised. The  startup is said to be raising $6B on a pre-money valuation of $18B. The deal for investors to get a  quarter of the company will be closing soon. In addition, Jared Birchall the known head of Musk’s family office told investors about xAI raising $3B at a pre-money valuation of $15B a few weeks ago.  However, a sudden rise in investors trying to get into the deal got those numbers doubled. According  to Financial Times Musk is looking for up to $6 billion in funding. 

Everyone knows by now that the main objective of xAI is to connect the digital and physical worlds,  but not many know that Musk planned to do this by getting training data from each of his own  companies including X, SpaceX, Neuralink, and Tesla. X(Twitter) is already a shareholder of xAI and  has an AI chatbot named Grok as explained earlier. Another investor would be Tesla, they have been  working with AI for a long time focusing on “ self-driving cars”, and “Optimus “The humanoid robot designed by Tesla”. Tesla has some specific use cases and that Tesla data is valuable, now whether the shareholders of Tesla will allow sharing of data or not is a whole other story, but Elon in general  wants to use the data of these companies for the xAI. X also owns a share in xAI which means the  overall performance of xAI will automatically help the social-media platform’s boost up. 

Musk co-founded Open AI in 2015 but left the board after 4 years due to some disagreements. And  later on, OpenAI became the fastest-growing startup in history. The rivalry between the two is  publicly known by many as Musk once sued OpenAI’s CEO for moving from their original “non-profit” goal to “for-profit”. Last month Elon open-sourced the architecture of Grok-1 (the earliest chatbot for  xAI), which was another step for Musk to distinguish his efforts from Open AI. 

Conclusion: 

Elon Musk’s AI startup, established just 10 months ago, aims to address existential challenges  through advanced AI research. With a collaboration with X (formerly Twitter), xAI aims to connect digital and physical worlds. The $6 billion funding, is backed by an exceptional technical team,  including members from DeepMind, OpenAI, and Google Research. Musk’s strategic vision of utilizing  training data from his companies underscores the ambitious goals of xAI. As the funding round nears  closure, the industry awaits the transformative impact of xAI’s endeavors under Musk’s leadership. 

FAQ: 

1. What is xAI and when was it founded? 

 – xAI is an artificial intelligence startup created by Elon Musk approximately 10 months ago. The  company focuses on addressing existential problems through AI research. 

2. How is the social media platform X involved with xAI? 

 – Elon Musk mentioned collaborating with the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) for xAI. As  part of this partnership, xAI introduced an AI chatbot named Grok exclusively available for X’s  premium subscribers. 

3. What was the initial funding target for xAI, and how did it change? 

 – Originally, the funding target for xAI was set at $3 billion. However, due to increased interest from  investors and the public, the funding was raised to $6 billion. 

4. What is the pre-money valuation of xAI? 

 – xAI is raising funds at a pre-money valuation of $18 billion, with investors expected to acquire a  quarter of the company. 

5. Who are some notable investors in xAI? 

 – Besides the social media platform X, Optimus, a humanoid robot designed by Tesla, is also said to  be an investor in xAI. This indicates strategic partnerships with Musk’s other companies. 

6. How does xAI plan to bridge the digital and physical worlds? 

 – Musk intends to gather training data for xAI from his companies, including X, SpaceX, Neuralink,  and Tesla. This approach aims to connect the digital and physical world through AI technology. 

7. Can we take startup funds from the government in India?

– YES! The government has initiated a few loan schemes to provide collateral-free debt to aspiring  entrepreneurs and help them gain access to low-cost capital such as the Startup India Seed Fund  Scheme and SIDBI Fund of Funds. A list of government schemes can be found here. 

8. What are the criteria for startup funding? 

– Concerned startups must work to develop, deploy, or commercialize any product or service that is  driven by the latest technology or intellectual property. Startups must aim to improve an existing  product or create a new one to enhance customer value or workflow. 

9. What is the 20 lakh grant for startups in India? 

– up to Rs. 20 Lakhs as a grant for validation of Proof of Concept, or prototype development, or  product trials. The grant shall be disbursed in milestone-based installments. These milestones can be  related to the development of prototypes, product testing, building a product ready for market  launch, etc. 

10. Who is eligible for an MSME grant? 

– The beneficiary unit(s) must typically be registered micro, small, or medium enterprises as per the  definition in MSMED and should have a valid UAM or Udyam Registration. The manufacturing  MSMEs may be a profitable entity preferably in the last 1 year of its operations, PMAC can relax the  criteria. You can check more schemes here.