Elon Musk announced his new company xAI, which he says has the goal to understand the true nature of the universe.
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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has raised $15 billion from investors, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC’s David Faber.
The funding adds another $5 billion to the $10 billion round CNBC reported on in September, which valued the startup at $200 billion. Sources told CNBC that a lot of the money will fund graphic processing units that underpin large language models.
Artificial intelligence startups have reached sky high valuations in recent months as they raise massive amounts of capital to power seemingly endless demand for foundational models.
In September, AI startup Anthropic closed a $13 billion funding round that roughly tripled its valuation from March. Sam Altman’s OpenAI in October closed a $6.6 billion share sale at a $500 billion valuation. Last month, Reuters reported that the ChatGPT maker was prepping for an IPO that could value it at $1 trillion.
XAI is in the process of building out large data centers equipped with tens of thousands of AI chips to power its supercomputer. In Memphis, the company is battling opposition from environmental and civil rights groups aiming to block its use of a gas-burning turbines as a power source.
Last week, Tesla shareholders voted to approve Musk’s massive pay package worth nearly $1 trillion, and voted on a proposal for the company to invest in xAI.
Brandon Ehrhart, general counsel at Tesla, said there were more votes for than against, but noted the abstentions and said the company is considering next steps on the issue.
XAI acquired Musk’s social network X this March in an all-stock transaction in a deal that valued the platform at $33 billion.