Elon Musk on Thursday dismissed as “false” a CNBC report claiming his artificial intelligence startup, xAI, had raised $15 billion in a Series E funding round. The report alleged the capital raise added $5 billion to a previously reported $10 billion round that valued the company at $200 billion—claims Musk has repeatedly rejected, reports Reuters.
CNBC had earlier reported that xAI was raising $10 billion, a story Musk also denied at the time. Responding to a Reuters inquiry, xAI issued what appeared to be an automated reply stating simply: “Legacy Media Lies.”
The AI startup has been rapidly expanding its data center capacity in an effort to train more advanced models and compete more aggressively with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. CNBC earlier reported that much of the money xAI is seeking would go toward purchasing graphics processing units (GPUs), the hardware critical for developing large-scale language models.
Investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence firms remains intense, despite rising concerns about inflated valuations and massive spending across the sector.
Founded in July 2023 as an alternative to OpenAI, xAI is also investing heavily in physical infrastructure. The company has been acquiring property in Memphis, Tennessee, to support development of its planned Colossus supercomputer, which Musk says will be among the most powerful AI systems in the world.
Bd-pratidin English/ Jisan
