Elon Musk’s xAI set to close new round at $24b valuation: report

Photo credit: Dan Taylor/Heisenberg Media.

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, is set to close a fundraising round in June with a potential post-money valuation of over US$24 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the discussions.

Originally, the company aimed to get US$6 billion in funding this month. Now, xAI is said to be targeting to raise as much as US$6.5 billion and expects to hit this goal in the next few weeks.

This development comes after xAI announced its plan to open-source its ChatGPT rival Grok, which is powered partly by data from X (previously Twitter), Musk’s social media platform.

Bloomberg noted in January that xAI was looking to raise US$1 billion. This figure has since surged, causing a delay in closing the deal.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that the new funding round has given xAI a pre-money valuation of US$18 billion, with backers including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Tribe Capital.

Musk has said that xAI aims for “truth-seeking,” differentiating its models from those of Google parent firm Alphabet and Microsoft-backed OpenAI.

The billionaire has also taken legal action against OpenAI and its co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman for allegedly deviating from the firm’s open-source ethos to chase profit.

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