Company:XAI
| xAI | |
| Type | Private |
| Industry | Artificial intelligence Social media Technology |
| Founded | March 9, 2023[lower-alpha 1] |
| Founder | Elon Musk |
| Headquarters | Stanford Research Park[1], Palo Alto, California , United States |
Key people | |
| Products |
|
| Revenue | $100 million (annualized) (Dec. 2024)[4] |
Number of employees | 1,200+[lower-alpha 2] (2025) |
| Parent | X.AI Holdings Corp. (59% ownership by Elon Musk)[6] |
| Subsidiaries | X Corp.[7] |
| Website | x |
| Footnotes / references [8][9] | |
X.AI Corp., doing business as xAI, is an American company working in the area of artificial intelligence (AI), social media and technology.[10] Founded by Elon Musk in 2023, the company's flagship products are the generative AI chatbot named Grok and the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), the latter of which they acquired in March 2025.
History
xAI was founded on March 9, 2023, by Musk.[11][12] For Chief Engineer, he recruited Igor Babuschkin, formerly associated with Google's DeepMind unit.[13] Musk officially announced the formation of xAI on July 12, 2023.[14]
As of July 2023, xAI was headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.[15] It was initially incorporated in Nevada as a public-benefit corporation with the stated general purpose of "creat[ing] a material positive impact on society and the environment".[16] By May 2024, it had dropped the public-benefit status.[17] The original stated goal of the company was "to understand the true nature of the universe".[18]
Financial history
In November 2023, Musk stated that "X Corp investors will own 25% of xAI".[19] In December 2023, in a U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, xAI revealed that it had raised US$134.7 million in outside funding out of a total of up to $1 billion.[20][21] After the earlier raise, Musk stated in December 2023 that xAI was not seeking any funding "right now".[22] By May 2024, xAI was reportedly planning to raise another $6 billion of funding.[23][24] Later that same month, the company secured the support of various venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Tribe Capital.[25][26]
As of August 2024[update], Musk was diverting a large number of Nvidia chips that had been ordered by Tesla, Inc. to X and xAI.[27] On December 23, 2024, xAI raised an additional $6 billion in a private funding round supported by Fidelity, BlackRock, Sequoia Capital, among others, making its total funding to date over $12 billion.[28] On February 10, 2025, xAI and other investors made an offer to acquire OpenAI for $97.4 billion.[29] On March 17, 2025, xAI acquired Hotshot, a startup working on AI-powered video generation tools.[30] On March 28, 2025, Musk announced that xAI acquired sister company X Corp., the developer of social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), which was previously acquired by Musk in October 2022. The deal, an all-stock transaction, valued X at $33 billion, with a full valuation of $45 billion when factoring in $12 billion in debt. Meanwhile, xAI itself was valued at $80 billion. Both companies were combined into a single entity called X.AI Holdings Corp.[31][32][33]
On July 1, 2025, Morgan Stanley announced that they had raised $5 billion in debt for xAI and that xAI had separately raised $5 billion in equity. The debt consists of secured notes and term loans. Morgan Stanley took no stake in the debt.[34][35] SpaceX, another Musk venture, was involved in the equity raise, agreeing to invest $2 billion in xAI.[36] On July 14, xAI announced "Grok for Government" and the United States Department of Defense announced that xAI had received a $200 million contract for AI in the military, along with Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI.[37] On September 12, xAI laid off 500 data annotation workers. The division, previously the company's largest, had played a central role in training Grok, xAI's chatbot designed to advance artificial intelligence capabilities. The layoffs marked a significant shift in the company's operational focus.[38][39][40]
On November 26, 2025, Elon Musk announced his plans to build a solar farm near Colossus with an estimated output of 30 megawatts of electricity, which is only 10% of the data center's power use. This comes following pollution caused by natural gas turbines to power the data center, with the Southern Environmental Law Center stating that the turbines produce 2,000 tons of nitrogen oxide emissions annually.[41]
Environmental impact
In June 2024, the Greater Memphis Chamber announced xAI was planning on building Colossus, the world's largest supercomputer, in Memphis, Tennessee.[42] After a 122-day construction, the supercomputer went fully operational in December 2024. Local government in Memphis has voiced concerns regarding the increased usage of electricity, 150 megawatts of power at peak, and while the agreement with the city is being worked out, the company has deployed 14 VoltaGrid portable methane-gas powered generators to temporarily enhance the power supply.[43]
Environmental advocates said that the gas-burning turbines emit large quantities of gases causing air pollution, and that xAI has been operating the turbines illegally without the necessary permits.[44][45] The New Yorker reported on May 6, 2025, that thermal-imaging equipment used by volunteers flying over the site showed at least 33 generators giving off heat, indicating that they were all running. The truck-mounted generators emit about the same amount of pollutants as the Tennessee Valley Authority's large gas-fired power plant nearby.[46] The Shelby County Health Department granted xAI an air permit for the project in July 2025.[47]
Expansion
xAI has continually expanded its infrastructure, with the purchase of a third building on December 30, 2025 to boost its training capacity to nearly 2 gigawatts of compute power. xAI's commitment to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude models underlies the expansion. Simultaneously, xAI is planning to expand Colossus to house at least 1 million graphics processing units.[48]
Products
According to Musk in July 2023, a politically correct AI would be dangerously misleading, citing as an example the fictional HAL 9000 from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Musk instead said that xAI would be "maximally truth-seeking". Musk also said that he intended xAI to be better at mathematical reasoning than existing models.[49] On November 4, 2023, xAI unveiled Grok, an AI chatbot that is integrated with X. xAI stated that when the bot is out of beta, it will only be available to X's Premium+ subscribers.[50][51]
In March 2024, Grok was made available to all X Premium subscribers; it was previously available only to Premium+ subscribers.[52][53] On March 17, 2024, xAI released Grok-1 as open source.[54][55] On March 29, 2024, Grok-1.5 was announced, with "improved reasoning capabilities" and a context length of 128,000 tokens.[56] On April 12, 2024, Grok-1.5 Vision (Grok-1.5V) was announced.[57][non-primary source needed] On August 14, 2024, Grok-2 was made available to X Premium subscribers.[58] It is the first Grok model with image generation capabilities.[59]
On October 21, 2024, xAI released an applications programming interface (API).[60] On December 9, 2024, xAI released a text-to-image model named Aurora.[61] On February 17, 2025, xAI released Grok-3, which includes a reflection feature. xAI also introduced a websearch function called DeepSearch.[62] In March 2025, xAI added an image editing feature to Grok, enabling users to upload a photo, describe the desired changes, and receive a modified version.[63] Alongside this, xAI released DeeperSearch, an enhanced version of DeepSearch.[64] On July 9, 2025, xAI unveiled Grok-4. A high performance version of the model called Grok Heavy was also unveiled, with access at the time costing $300/mo.[65]
On October 27, 2025, xAI launched Grokipedia, an AI-powered online encyclopedia and alternative to Wikipedia, developed by the company and powered by Grok.[66] Also in October, Musk announced that xAI had established a dedicated game studio to develop AI-driven video games, with plans to release a great AI-generated game before the end of 2026.[67][68]
Valuation
| Transaction | Year | Amount raised (USD) | Valuation (USD) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equity | Debt | Total | Pre-money | Post-money | |||
| A[69] | A | 67.34MM | |||||
| A-1 | 67.34MM | ||||||
| A (overall) | Nov 29, 2023 | 134.68MM | 134.68MM | 673.4MM | |||
| B[69] | May 26, 2024 | 6B | 6B | 18B | 24B | ||
| C[69] | Dec 23, 2024 | 6B | 6B | 44B | 50B | ||
| Acquisition of X Corp. | Mar 28, 2025 | 80B | 113B | ||||
| Unknown | June 2025[lower-alpha 3] | 5B[70] | 5B[70] | 9.3B-10B | >120B[70] | ||
See also
- X (formerly Twitter)
Notes
References
- ↑ Robison, Kylie (January 10, 2025). "How Elon Musk's xAI is quietly taking over X". https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/10/24339249/elon-musk-xai-x-twitter.
- ↑ Murphy, Hannah; Morris, Stephen; Barnes, Oliver (October 6, 2025). "Elon Musk names former Morgan Stanley banker as new xAI CFO". Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/79b53db3-3411-454c-814d-d86f3c800abd. "Armstrong will also take up the duties of X's chief financial officer Mahmoud Reza Banki"
- ↑ https://x.ai
- ↑ "What We Know About xAI As It Bolsters Itself For AI Race—With $6 Billion In New Funding". December 6, 2024. https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/12/06/what-we-know-about-xai-as-it-bolsters-itself-for-ai-race-with-6-billion-in-new-funding/.
- ↑ "Inside xAI's organizational chart: Who's in charge at Elon Musk's company". March 2025. https://www.businessinsider.com/xai-org-chart-employees-elon-musk-direct-reports-2025-3.
- ↑ "The xAI-X Deal Is A $33 Billion Windfall For Elon Musk". Forbes. 2 April 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2025/04/02/the-xai-x-deal-is-a-33-billion-windfall-for-elon-musk/.
- ↑ "Elon Musk says xAI acquired X". Techcrunch. March 28, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/28/elon-musk-says-xai-acquired-x/.
- ↑ Beltran, Luisa (November 20, 2023). "xAI org chart: All the top power players at Elon Musk's new OpenAI competitor". Fortune. https://fortune.com/2023/11/20/xai-organizational-structure-elon-musk-top-executives/.
- ↑ Kay, Grace (12 February 2025). "XAI Is Ramping up Hiring in 2025, Workers Say". https://www.businessinsider.com/xai-elon-musk-hiring-ramp-up-data-annotators-2025-2.
- ↑ "X.AI Corp.". https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_nv/E28915122023-8.
- ↑ "Elon Musk launches xAI in challenge to dominance of ChatGPT owner". July 12, 2023. https://www.ft.com/content/19cce4b5-b2dd-4c1e-a109-b500e504dbb6.
- ↑ Bhattacharya, Suryathapa (July 12, 2023). "Elon Musk Launches xAI, His New Artificial-Intelligence Company". The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-xai-artificial-intelligence-company-openai-chatgpt-4a6f178a.
- ↑ Isaacson, Walter (September 12, 2023). Elon Musk. Simon & Schuster. pp. 605–606. ISBN 978-1-9821-8128-4. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Elon-Musk/Walter-Isaacson/9781982181284. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
- ↑ Vynck, Gerrit De (2023-07-15). "Musk's new AI company, xAI, will aim to solve scientific mysteries" (in en-US). Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/14/xai-elon-musk-ai-company/.
- ↑ Anirban Ghoshal (July 13, 2023). "Elon Musk launches xAI to take on ChatGPT-maker OpenAI". https://www.computerworld.com/article/3702708/elon-musk-launches-xai-to-take-on-chatgpt-maker-openai.html.
- ↑ Peterson, Becky (2023-12-26). "Musk's xAI Incorporates as Benefit Corporation With 'Positive Impact' Goal" (in en). https://www.theinformation.com/articles/musks-xai-incorporates-as-benefit-corporation-with-positive-impact-goal.
- ↑ Kolodny, Lora (2025-08-25). "Elon Musk's xAI secretly dropped its benefit corporation status while fighting OpenAI" (in en). https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/25/elon-musk-xai-dropped-public-benefit-corp-status-while-fighting-openai.html.
- ↑ "xAI: Understand the Universe" (in en). http://x.ai/.
- ↑ "Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on X" (in en). X (formerly Twitter). https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1726177644671091192.
- ↑ Silberling, Amanda. "Elon Musk is looking to raise $1 billion for xAI". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/05/elon-musk-raise-1-billion-xai/.
- ↑ Primack, Dan (December 6, 2023). "How Elon Musk may be spinning up a Plan B to save X". https://www.axios.com/2023/12/06/elon-musk-twitter-x-ai-funding.
- ↑ "Elon Musk says his AI firm xAI is not raising funds 'right now'". December 6, 2023. https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-says-his-ai-firm-xai-is-not-raising-funds-right-now-2023-12-06/.
- ↑ Tomchak, David (30 May 2024). "Elon Musk: Tesla CEO warns of the risks of AI to our jobs—while raising $6bn for xAI". Standard.co.uk. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tech/elon-musk-tesla-ai-risks-jobs-xai-b1160911.html.
- ↑ "Elon's AI venture being sold as part of a "Muskonomy"". Axios. May 18, 2024. https://www.axios.com/2024/05/18/elon-musk-xai-fundraising.
- ↑ Hammond, George; Kinder, Tabby (May 23, 2024). "Elon Musk's xAI secures new backing from Andreessen, Lightspeed, Sequoia and Tribe". https://www.ft.com/content/0b6f634e-dbf0-4238-a319-1dc1bbc0b62e.
- ↑ "Musk's xAI seeking to raise $6 bln in Andreessen Horowitz-backed funding, FT reports". Reuters. May 23, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/technology/musks-xai-seeking-raise-6-bln-andreessen-horowitz-backed-funding-ft-reports-2024-05-23/.
- ↑ Kolodny, Lora (June 4, 2024). "Elon Musk ordered Nvidia to ship thousands of AI chips reserved for Tesla to X and xAI". CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/04/elon-musk-told-nvidia-to-ship-ai-chips-reserved-for-tesla-to-x-xai.html.
- ↑ Conger, Kate (December 24, 2024). "Elon Musk's xAI Raises $6 Billion in New Funding". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/24/technology/elon-musk-xai-funding.html.
- ↑ Hammond, George (2025-02-10). "Elon Musk-led consortium offers $100bn to take control of OpenAI". Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/3a673ed2-26d5-47af-9028-8af7d742c2e7.
- ↑ Wiggers, Kyle (2025-03-17). "Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, acquires a generative AI video startup" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/17/elon-musks-ai-company-xai-acquires-a-generative-ai-video-startup/.
- ↑ Zeff, Maxwell (2025-03-29). "Elon Musk says xAI acquired X" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/29/elon-musk-says-xai-acquired-x/.
- ↑ "Musk's xAI Startup Swallows Up X Social Network in Surprise Deal" (in en-US). 2025-03-28. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-28/musk-says-that-his-xai-startup-has-acquired-x-for-33-billion.
- ↑ Hyatt, John. "Elon Musk Scores $33 Billion In Self-Serving Merger" (in en). https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2025/04/02/the-xai-x-deal-is-a-33-billion-windfall-for-elon-musk/.
- ↑ Tracy, Matt; Wang, Echo; Bautzer, Tatiana; Wang, Echo; Bautzer, Tatiana (2025-06-10). "Morgan Stanley markets $5 billion for Elon Musk-owned xAI in loans, bonds, sources say" (in en). Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/morgan-stanley-markets-5-billion-elon-musk-owned-xai-loans-bonds-sources-say-2025-06-10/.
- ↑ "Musk's xAI raises $5 billion each in fresh debt and equity, Morgan Stanley says" (in en). Reuters. 2025-07-01. https://www.reuters.com/business/musks-xai-raises-5-billion-each-fresh-debt-equity-morgan-stanley-says-2025-07-01/.
- ↑ Jin, Berber; Peterson, Becky. "SpaceX to Invest $2 Billion Into Elon Musk's xAI". Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/tech/spacex-to-invest-2-billion-into-elon-musks-xai-413934de.
- ↑ Brodkin, Jon (2025-07-15). "Grok's "MechaHitler" meltdown didn't stop xAI from winning $200M military deal" (in en). https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/07/groks-mechahitler-meltdown-didnt-stop-xai-from-winning-200m-military-deal/.
- ↑ Kay, Grace (2025-09-12). "Elon Musk's xAI lays off hundreds of workers tasked with training Grok". Business Insider (Axel Springer SE). https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-xai-layoffs-data-annotators-2025-9.
- ↑ "xAI Layoffs Shock Tech Industry: 500 Data Annotation Workers Cut as AI Focus Shifts" (in en). https://beamstart.com/news/xai-reportedly-lays-off-500-17577795076322.
- ↑ "xAI reportedly laid off at least 500 AI tutors working on Grok" (in en-US). 2025-09-13. https://www.engadget.com/ai/xai-reportedly-laid-off-at-least-500-ai-tutors-working-on-grok-130059624.html.
- ↑ De Chant, Tim (November 26, 2026). "Musk’s xAI to build small solar farm adjacent to Colossus data center". Tech Crunch. https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/26/musks-xai-to-build-small-solar-farm-adjacent-to-colossus-data-center/.
- ↑ "Musk to Locate xAI Supercomputer in Memphis". https://www.memphisflyer.com/musk-locates-xai-in-memphis.
- ↑ Edwards, Benj (2024-07-24). "Elon Musk claims he is training "the world's most powerful AI by every metric"" (in en-us). https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/07/elon-musk-claims-he-is-training-the-worlds-most-powerful-ai-by-every-metric/.
- ↑ "Musk's xAI operating gas turbines without permits at data center, environmental group says". Reuters. 2024-08-28. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/musks-xai-operating-gas-turbines-without-permits-data-center-environmental-group-2024-08-28/.
- ↑ "Environmentalists urge health department to take action on xAI" (in en). https://dailymemphian.com/subscriber/article/45989/environmental-groups-urge-shelby-county-health-dept-action-xai-turbines-memphis.
- ↑ McKibben, Bill (May 6, 2025). "How Is Elon Musk Powering His Supercomputer?". The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/how-is-elon-musk-powering-his-supercomputer. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
- ↑ Taft, Molly. "Despite Protests, Elon Musk Secures Air Permit for xAI" (in en-US). Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. https://www.wired.com/story/xai-data-center-air-pollution-permit/. Retrieved 2025-07-03.
- ↑ "Musk's xAI buys third building to expand AI compute power". Reuters. December 30, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/business/musks-xai-buys-third-building-expand-ai-compute-power-2025-12-30/.
- ↑ Schreckinger, Ben (July 17, 2023). "Elon Musk's liberal-trolling AI plan has a core audience". Politico. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/17/ai-musk-chatgpt-xai-00106672.
- ↑ Neowin, Paul Hill (2023-11-04). "Elon Musk gives a glimpse at xAI's Grok chatbot" (in en). https://www.neowin.net/news/elon-musk-gives-a-glimpse-at-xais-grok-chatbot/.
- ↑ "Elon Musk Says His New AI Bot 'Grok' Will Have Sarcasm and Access to X Information". Wall Street Journal. November 4, 2023. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/elon-musk-says-his-new-ai-bot-grok-will-have-sarcasm-and-access-to-x-information-b4e169de.
- ↑ "Elon Musk Makes Grok AI Available to All Paying X Subscribers: What to Know" (in en). https://www.cnet.com/tech/elon-musk-makes-grok-ai-available-to-all-paying-x-subscribers-what-to-know/.
- ↑ Mehta, Ivan (2024-04-06). "X makes Grok chatbot available to premium subscribers" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/05/x-makes-grok-chatbot-available-to-premium-subscribers/.
- ↑ "Elon Musk's Grok-1 goes open-source: What it means for users". The Times of India. ISSN 0971-8257. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/elon-musks-grok-1-goes-open-source-what-is-means-for-users/articleshow/108589278.cms.
- ↑ David, Emilia (2024-03-18). "xAI open sources Grok" (in en). https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/17/24097810/xai-open-source-grok-musk-generative-ai-llm.
- ↑ "Announcing Grok-1.5" (in en). https://x.ai/blog/grok-1.5.
- ↑ "Grok-1.5 Vision Preview" (in en). https://x.ai/blog/grok-1.5v.
- ↑ Mehta, Ivan (2024-08-14). "xAI releases Grok-2, adds image generation on X" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/13/xais-grok-can-now-generate-images-on-x/.
- ↑ Weatherbed, Jess (2024-08-14). "xAI's new Grok-2 chatbots bring AI image generation to X" (in en). https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/14/24220127/grok-ai-chatbot-beta-image-generation-x-xai-update.
- ↑ Wiggers, Kyle (2024-10-21). "xAI, Elon Musk's AI startup, launches an API" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/21/xai-elon-musks-ai-startup-launches-an-api/.
- ↑ Wiggers, Kyle (2024-12-07). "Elon Musk's X gains a new image generator, Aurora" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/07/elon-musks-x-gains-a-new-image-generator-aurora/.
- ↑ Wiggers, Kyle (2025-02-17). "Elon Musk's xAI releases its latest flagship model, Grok 3" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/17/elon-musks-ai-company-xai-releases-its-latest-flagship-ai-grok-3/.
- ↑ "I tried Grok's new AI image editing features – they're fun but won't replace Photoshop any time soon" (in en). 2025-03-25. https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/i-tried-groks-new-ai-image-editing-features-theyre-fun-but-wont-replace-photoshop-any-time-soon.
- ↑ Bastian, Matthias (2025-03-22). "Grok 3 adds deeper search and AI image editing capabilities" (in en-US). https://the-decoder.com/grok-3-adds-deeper-search-and-ai-image-editing-capabilities/.
- ↑ "Musk Admits Grok AI 'Lacks Common Sense,' Reveals Pricey $300 Monthly Plan". July 10, 2025. https://www.pcmag.com/news/musk-admits-grok-ai-lacks-common-sense-reveals-pricey-300-monthly-plan.
- ↑ Siladitya Ray (October 28, 2025). "Musk Takes On Wikipedia With AI-Generated Grokipedia: What To Know". Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/10/28/musk-takes-on-wikipedia-with-ai-generated-grokipedia-what-to-know/.
- ↑ https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1975064769729327545
- ↑ https://www.ign.com/articles/elon-musk-promises-his-xai-studio-will-release-a-great-ai-generated-video-game-and-grok-will-make-a-movie-that-is-at-least-watchable-both-before-the-end-of-2026
- ↑ 69.0 69.1 69.2 "xAI (XAAI.PVT) Valuation, History & News - Yahoo Finance" (in en-US). https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/XAAI.PVT/.
- ↑ 70.0 70.1 70.2 "Musk's xAI raises $5 billion each in fresh debt and equity, Morgan Stanley says" (in en). Reuters. 2025-07-01. https://www.reuters.com/business/musks-xai-raises-5-billion-each-fresh-debt-equity-morgan-stanley-says-2025-07-01/.
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