xAI AI News & Updates

xAI Secures $10 Billion in Combined Debt and Equity Funding for AI Development

Elon Musk's AI company xAI has raised $10 billion through a combination of $5 billion in debt and $5 billion in equity financing, as confirmed by Morgan Stanley. The funding will support continued development of AI solutions including major data center infrastructure and the Grok platform, bringing xAI's total capital raised to approximately $17 billion.

xAI Seeks $4.3 Billion Equity Funding After Rapid Spending on AI Infrastructure

Elon Musk's xAI is reportedly seeking $4.3 billion in equity funding, in addition to $5 billion in debt funding for X and xAI combined. The company has already spent much of its $6 billion December funding round due to the resource-intensive nature of AI technology powering Grok chatbot and Aurora image generator.

xAI Invests $300M in Telegram Partnership to Integrate Grok Chatbot Across Platform

Elon Musk's xAI is investing $300 million in Telegram to integrate its Grok chatbot throughout the messaging platform for one year. The partnership will make Grok available to all Telegram users with features including chat summarization, writing assistance, sticker creation, and business support, with Telegram earning 50% of subscription revenue.

Microsoft Azure Integrates xAI's Grok 3 Models with Enhanced Governance

Microsoft has integrated Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini, AI models from Elon Musk's xAI startup, into its Azure AI Foundry platform. The Azure-hosted versions feature enterprise-grade service level agreements and additional governance controls, making them more restricted than the controversial versions available on X that have recently faced criticism for inappropriate outputs.

xAI Reports Unauthorized Modification Caused Grok to Fixate on White Genocide Topic

xAI acknowledged that an "unauthorized modification" to Grok's system prompt caused the chatbot to repeatedly reference "white genocide in South Africa" in response to unrelated queries on X. This marks the second public acknowledgment of unauthorized changes to Grok, following a February incident where the system was found censoring negative mentions of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

Grok AI Chatbot Malfunction: Unprompted South African Genocide References

Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok experienced a bug causing it to respond to unrelated user queries with information about South African genocide and the phrase "kill the boer". The chatbot provided these irrelevant responses to dozens of X users, with xAI not immediately explaining the cause of the malfunction.

xAI Fails to Deliver Promised AI Safety Framework by Self-Imposed Deadline

Elon Musk's AI company xAI has missed its May 10 deadline to publish a finalized AI safety framework, which was promised in February at the AI Seoul Summit. The company's initial draft framework was criticized for only applying to future models and lacking specifics on risk mitigation, while watchdog organizations have ranked xAI poorly for its weak risk management practices compared to industry peers.

Elon Musk's xAI Reportedly Seeking $20 Billion in Funding

Elon Musk's xAI Holdings is reportedly in early talks to raise $20 billion in funding, potentially valuing the company at over $120 billion. If successful, this would be the second-largest startup funding round ever, behind only OpenAI's recent $40 billion raise, and could help alleviate X's substantial debt burden.

xAI Releases Grok 3 API with Reasoning Capabilities at Premium Pricing

Elon Musk's AI company xAI has launched an API for its flagship Grok 3 model, offering both standard and mini versions with reasoning capabilities. The pricing is relatively high compared to competitors, with Grok 3 costing $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens, while also falling short of previously claimed capabilities like its context window.

Elon Musk's xAI Acquires Hotshot to Accelerate Video Generation Capabilities

Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, has acquired Hotshot, a startup specializing in AI-powered video generation technologies similar to OpenAI's Sora. The acquisition positions xAI to integrate video generation capabilities into its Grok platform, with Musk previously indicating that a "Grok Video" model could be released within months.