Musk’s xAI reportedly set to raise $15b in December

xAI, Elon Musk’s AI startup, is expected to raise US$15 billion in a funding round set to close in December, sources told CNBC.

The deal would value xAI at US$230 billion before the new investment.

Musk has disputed previous reports about this funding round, calling them “false” on X.

A large part of the funds will go toward acquiring graphics processing units for building large language models, sources said.

xAI launched the Grok chatbot, which has faced criticism for spreading hate speech, and recently introduced Grokipedia, an AI-powered encyclopedia.

🔗 Source: CNBC

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

xAI filed Form D with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in December 2023 1. It lists US$134.7 million sold with US$865.3 million open for accredited investors, high-net-worth individuals and institutions meeting SEC criteria. The company filed again on Dec. 5, 2024 2, yet no SEC filing for a US$15B raise has appeared. Under Regulation D issuers usually file within 15 days of the first sale.
Musk called prior funding reports false. That casts doubt on the US$230B pre-money valuation, company value before new investment, and the round structure. The split between primary capital and secondary sales by early investors remains unverified. Primary means new shares that raise cash, secondary is existing shares changing hands. That choice sets xAI’s GPU budget.
No lead investor, the firm that sets terms, or a term sheet, a non-binding deal summary, has surfaced. If the deal exists the deployment timeline plus governance terms, board seats and voting rights, will shape xAI’s ability to secure NVIDIA H100 or H200 in 2025.

Teams may shift to AMD MI300X if NVIDIA supply tightens. HBM3 and 5.3 TB/s bandwidth make MI300X viable for LLM training 3.
Crusoe offers MI300X 3, Runpod lists US$3.49 per hour 4, and AMD Developer Cloud provides credits with pay as you go options 5. Use spot MI300X for training with reserved NVIDIA for inference to cut cost per token during a 2025 crunch tied to xAI.