Elon Musk announced his new company, xAI, and said it has the goal of understanding the nature of the universe.
Jaap Ariens | Nurfoto | Getty Images
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has raised $15 billion from investors, a person familiar with the matter tells CNBC’s David Faber.
The funding adds another $5 billion to a $10 billion round that CNBC reported in September that valued the startup at $200 billion. Officials told CNBC that the bulk of the money will go toward funding graphics processing equipment to support large-scale language models.
Artificial intelligence startups have reached sky-high valuations in recent months, raising huge sums of money to fuel seemingly endless demand for their underlying models.
In September, AI startup Anthropic closed a $13 billion funding round, nearly tripling its valuation since March. Sam Altman’s OpenAI completed a $6.6 billion stock sale in October at a valuation of $500 billion. Last month, Reuters reported that the ChatGPT maker was preparing for an IPO that could reach a valuation of $1 trillion.
XAI is building a massive data center with tens of thousands of AI chips to power its supercomputers. In Memphis, the company is battling opposition from environmental and civil rights groups aimed at blocking the use of gas-fired turbines to fuel data centers.
Last week, Tesla shareholders voted to approve Musk’s nearly $1 trillion salary and also voted on the company’s proposal to invest in xAI.
Brandon Ehrhart, Tesla’s general counsel, said there were more votes in favor than against, but he noted those who abstained and said the company is considering its next steps on the issue.
XAI acquired Musk’s social network X in an all-stock deal in March, valuing the platform at $33 billion.
