Elon Musk, who’s been vocally critical about artificial intelligence lately, seems to be planning something AI related. According to The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, Musk has founded a new artificial intelligence company called X.AI Corp. Based on a state filing from last month that the sources have viewed, the new company is incorporated in Nevada and lists Musk as the sole director, as well as Jared Birchall, the director of his family’s offices, as the secretary. The multi-company executive is known to have a special affinity for the letter ”X” and has even recently renamed Twitter, Inc. as X Corp.
Musk is no stranger to AI projects. He co-founded OpenAI before leaving the company almost a decade ago. After ChatGPT’s meteoric rise in popularity, though, Musk advocated for the technology’s regulation and signed an open letter that urged tech leaders to put a six-month pause on its development. The Journal says Musk thought ChatGPT was politically biased — he once commented on the “danger of training AI to be woke” — and that he’s looking create AI models that are “truth-seeking.”
At this point, though, Musk’s plans for X.AI Corp and whether he’s looking to build a veritable ChatGPT rival remains unclear. While details are still scarce, previous reports provide clues on how Musk’s AI efforts are progressing. He reportedly hired two former DeepMind researchers in March, including scientist Igor Babuschkin, who’s believed to be helming the new project. Musk also reportedly purchased 10,000 GPUs for AI development at one of Twitter’s data centers. In addition, according to The Times, he’s already in talks with Tesla and SpaceX investors to put money into his new venture.