Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, today announced the launch of a new artificial intelligence (AI) company, xAI. Musk, who was once part of the AI research nonprofit OpenAI, now says,understand the nature of the universe”
The startup’s team currently consists of 12 people, led by Musk, and is made up of veterans from DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Tesla, and the University of Toronto.
Rumor to reality
Rumors about Musk’s AI commitments surfaced earlier this year when Musk reportedly purchased thousands of GPU processors to support his upcoming AI product. His new company, xAI, which was founded in Nevada in March 2023, has named Musk as a director and Jared Virtual, director of Musk’s family office, as secretary.
Musk’s interest in AI, particularly OpenAI’s GPT-4-like language model, was hinted at in an April interview with Tucker Carlson. Musk has expressed his desire to create a “maximum truth-seeking AI,” which he calls “TruthGPT.” This ambition could shape his early xAI efforts, which may culminate in a text-generating AI that Musk perceives as “truthier” than existing models.
Dan Hendrycks, Director of the Center for AI Safety, has been appointed an advisor to xAI, reinforcing xAI’s mission to responsibly advance AI technology. The company will work with Twitter and Tesla to pursue goals that have yet to be revealed.
Despite Musk’s previous involvement with OpenAI, the billionaire’s relationship with his former organization has been strained since he stepped down from the OpenAI board in 2018. Disagreement arose when Musk disagreed with the company’s move from open-source research to a primarily commercial project.
Elon Musk’s ambitious new venture will reveal more about its AI-based efforts at Friday’s Twitter Spaces event.
Further details about xAI’s operation are still being kept secret, but the effort demonstrates Musk’s growing ambition to revolutionize the AI industry and signal his willingness to challenge incumbent tech giants.
