Investors close to Elon Musk are in talks to help his artificial intelligence startup xAI raise $3 billion in a funding round that would value the company at $18 billion, The Wall reported Friday Street Journal.
Venture capital firm Gigafund and Steve Jurvetson are among the backers considering investing in the round, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
The WSJ report also states that a co-founder of another venture capital firm is also among the backers. However, he did not name the person or the company.
Terms of the xAI fundraiser have not been finalized and plans could change, the Journal said, adding that ongoing negotiations over the fundraiser have recently gained momentum.
xAI could not immediately be reached for comment. Musk’s office did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Seeking an alternative to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet’s Google, Musk launched xAI last year.
Earlier this year, Musk said xAI was not in talks with investors for funding, following a media report that the startup had raised as much as $6 billion.
The Financial Times reported in January that xAI was in talks to raise funding worth $20 billion.
“xAI is not raising capital and I have not had any conversations with anyone about it,” Musk said at the time.
xAI launched an improved version of its Grok chatbot in March – named Grok-1.5, a chatbot rivaling OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The chatbot is available to select users of X, formerly known as Twitter.
New York Post
