Musk creates AI company called X.AI to take on Microsoft’s OpenAI

The new company called X.AI has Musk as the only listed director, and Jared Birchall, director of Musk's family office, as secretary

New Delhi: Twitter CEO Elon Musk has created a new company called X.AI which will promote artificial intelligence (AI) in the ChatGPT era.

Incorporated in Nevada, Texas, the company has Musk as the only listed director, and Jared Birchall, director of Musk’s family office, as secretary, according to a filing.

---

X.AI has authorised the sale of 100 million shares for the privately held company, reports Wall Street Journal.

Musk aims to create an AI firm to take on Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the creator of the successful AI chatbot called ChatGPT.

Ironically, it was Musk who initially invested $100 million in OpenAI, but later exited the company.

In recent months, ChatGPT and GPT-4 have become a rage worldwide.

In March, several top entrepreneurs and AI researchers, including Musk and Steve Wozniak, Co-founder of Apple, wrote an open letter, asking all AI labs to immediately pause training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 for at least 6 months.

The open letter came as reports surfaced that Musk tried to take control of OpenAI in early 2018 but Sam Altman and OpenAI’s other founders rejected Musk’s proposal.

Musk, in turn, walked away from the company and reneged on a massive planned donation, according to Semafor.

The Twitter CEO reneged on a promise to supply $1 billion in funding, but contributed only $100 million before he walked away.

In March, 2019, OpenAI announced it was creating a for-profit entity so that it could raise enough money to pay for the compute power.

Less than six months later, Microsoft infused $1 billion in OpenAI, and the rest is history.

OpenAI’s last valuation was close to $20 billion, making it the most valuable company supported by AI in the world.

Musk has lately criticised OpenAI several times.