Alexander Lewis 
Dec 06, 2023
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) startup xAI has filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to accumulate up to $1 billion in an equity offering.
According to the SEC filing, xAI has so far raised about $135 million without mentioning the names of the investors. This indicates that he still needs $865 million more to go to meet his $1 billion goal.
As of now, xAI is working on Grok, archrival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard or Anthropic’s Claude, TechCrunch reported.
Read more: Why did Musk invest in Deep Mind despite risks to human settlements on Mars?
According to its website, Grok will have a “rebellious streak” and will answer “spicy” questions that other AI bots don’t engage with.
The product has only been in development for two months, but will supposedly be released in beta soon to those having a premium subscription of X.
However, for this feature to set Grok apart from the competition, it will have to be smart enough to distinguish between real news on X and misinformation.
The team behind xAI, which launched in July this year, comes from Google's DeepMind, the Windows parent, and other top AI research firms.
Musk has been vocal about his plans to build safer AI. In a Twitter Spaces event earlier in the year he said that rather than explicitly programming morality into its AI, xAI will seek to create a "maximally curious" AI.
The Tesla owner has been critical of OpenAI, especially as it fired, then re-hired, CEO Sam Altman in November, sparking mass confusion and concern within the AI industry.
In 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which wreaked havoc in the realm of generative AI technology around the world but stepped down from the board in 2018.
