Investors in talks to help Elon Musk's xAI raise $3 billion: Report

xAI funding: Investors close to Elon Musk are reportedly in discussions to support his artificial intelligence startup xAI in raising $3 billion, a move that would value the company at $18 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal's report on Friday.

Among the potential backers considering investment in this round are venture capital firm Gigafund and Steve Jurvetson, as stated by sources familiar with the matter cited in the report.

The WSJ report also indicated the involvement of a co-founder from another venture firm, although it refrained from disclosing the individual or the firm's identity.

While the terms of the fundraising for xAI are yet to be finalised and subject to change, the Journal noted a recent uptick in momentum in the current fundraising talks.

At the time of reporting, xAI could not be reached for immediate comment, and there was no response from Elon Musk's office to Reuters' request for comment.

Seeking an alternative to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet's Google, Elon Musk launched xAI in the previous year.

Earlier this year, Musk refuted claims of xAI being in talks with investors to secure funding, following media reports suggesting the startup was eyeing up to $6 billion in funding.

In January, the Financial Times reported xAI's negotiations to raise funds at a valuation of $20 billion.

Musk stated, "xAI is not raising capital and I have had no conversations with anyone in this regard," in response to those reports.

In March, xAI unveiled an upgraded version of its chatbot Grok, named Grok-1.5, to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT. The chatbot is now available for use by select users of X, formerly known as Twitter.