Elon Musk's xAI could be valued at $18 billion. Here's how

xAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) firm launched by Elon Musk in July last year, could potentially be valued at $18 billion as investors close to the billionaire are in talks to raise $3 billion, an amount that will take the company to the said valuation, The Wall Street Journal has reported (story behind paywall).

Those considering putting money into xAI include venture capital firm Gigafund and Steve Jurvetson, a business and venture capitalist, the report said. An unnamed co-founder of another venture capital firm is also a potential investor, it added.

While talks have gained momentum recently, the terms of the fundraising are yet to be finalised and “plans could change.”

In December last year, Musk had declared that the AI startup was not raising funds “right now." A a month later, the company was reported to have secured $500 million in “commitments” from investors towards a $1 billion goal.

xAI was started as an alternative to Microsoft-backed OpenAI, an AI startup from San Francisco that created ChatGPT. That AI chatbot was released in November 2022.

Meanwhile, for the first time since 2020, Elon Musk has fallen behind “arch-rival” Mark Zuckerberg, in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. While the Meta CEO is now the third-richest person in the world, the former has slipped to fourth on the list. Louis Vitton’s Bernard Arnault tops the rankings, while Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is second.

(With Reuters inputs)

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