Jason Miles
The Wall Street Journal was the first to disclose that Elon Musk had founded a new business named X.AI that specializes in artificial intelligence. Musk is now identified as the firm’s director while Jared Birchall, the director of Musk’s family office, is named as the secretary. According to a Nevada filing, the company was incorporated last month. According to the document, which The Verge has also accessed, Musk incorporated the company on March 9, 2023.
There have been rumors about Musk creating an AI startup for days. A Business Insider report said that Musk had bought thousands of graphic processing units (GPUs) to support a forthcoming generative AI product. The Financial Times also claimed that Musk intended to found an AI company to take on Microsoft-backed OpenAI. According to reports, Musk even asked SpaceX and Tesla investors for money to launch the business.
Musk refused to discuss his intentions to found an AI firm during an interview on Twitter Spaces when questioned about all the GPUs he had bought, saying instead that “it seems like everyone and their dog is buying GPUs at this point.” The branding of the alleged X.AI name resembles that of the X Corp. name he has later given to Twitter, as well as the “X” designation he has given to his concept of a “everything app.”
Musk recently signed a letter calling for a freeze on “giant AI experiments.” Musk has been outspokenly against OpenAI, the AI organization he co-founded in 2015 but left in 2018. On the strength of innovations like ChatGPT and GPT-4, OpenAI has recently gained a lot of notoriety. It is also partly to thank for Microsoft and Google’s current push to more completely incorporate AI tools into many of their businesses.
