Elon Musk Relies on His X AI Startup to tackle existential problems
Last year, when Elon Musk founded his AI company xAI, he promised that its employees will tackle “existential problems,” such as deciphering the universe’s makeup. Joining forces with his social-media firm X is another more earthly objective that Musk is pursuing with xAI.
For instance, the AI firm claims to have an edge thanks to X’s extensive post archive. In addition, X subscribers are the only ones who may access xAI’s chatbot Grok, the platform’s crown jewel.
After seven months of public launch, X and xAI have become more interdependent. In order to help X turn around its business and become a “everything app,” Musk is putting a lot of faith in AI initiatives, and their ties provide insight into this.
Musk is bringing X and xAI closer to his vision for the AI company and the app it will become—what he calls the “global town square for mostly unfiltered communication”—by leveraging overlapping investors, technology, and data. The app will offer messaging, digital banking, video entertainment, and more.
The future of social platforms will be significantly affected by generative AI, according to Daniel Newman, chief executive of The Futurum Group and a technology analyst. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on the implementation. While he is committed to making the platform less censored, Elon Musk views xAI as the driving force behind incorporating generative AI.
In her vision for X to become the “everything app,” X CEO Linda Yaccarino has singled out Grok as an essential component. January saw her article outlining major topics for X, such as artificial intelligence, free speech, and video content, in which she envisioned Grok serving as a concierge for all companies.
Financial relationships exist, according to Musk as well. A quarter of xAI will be owned by X Corp. investors, he tweeted last autumn. Despite the lack of specifics in his essay, several experts in corporate law have speculated that X investors would stand to gain from xAI’s claim that its chatbot receives real-time data from X’s platform.
X might also benefit from a partnership with xAI. An encouraging trend in technology, the recent uptick in generative AI has attracted investors and top talent to Silicon Valley. Ad sales crashed following content-moderation scandals, and Musk’s acquisition transaction put X in a precarious financial position.
According to Musk, it can be advantageous for his many businesses to work together, and he has a track record of doing just that. Investors have expressed concerns about that on occasion. As a “voluntary assignment,” Musk had Tesla workers evaluate Twitter’s engineering talent in his early days as Twitter CEO. Workers from SpaceX helped build a test tunnel for Boring Co. that was unveiled in 2018.
X and xAI are two independent but closely affiliated businesses, as stated on the xAI website.
XAI’s initial stages
After accusing OpenAI and other large AI developers of being overly politically correct and accumulating control, Musk established xAI last year. (After a power conflict, Musk departed OpenAI, which he co-founded.)
Musk quickly recognized potential for X and xAI to work together after purchasing the platform formerly known as Twitter. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk, he originally intended to use Twitter as an incubator for his artificial intelligence firm by housing some early employees there.
In the end, Musk stated that spinning off xAI into a new firm was essential, citing the fact that brilliant programmers would be more interested in working for a young company than a well-established one.
Professor of corporate law at Boston College, Brian Quinn, speculated that this may be a more appealing arrangement for any possible xAI investors. He explained that one may justify the creation of an AI subsidiary by claiming that while X isn’t exactly a hot topic among Valley venture capitalists, AI is.
A “see similar posts” button, supposedly “powered by xAI,” was introduced by X last year. A “see dissimilar posts” feature is also in the works, according to X.
Features built with xAI’s technology are still in the works. According to Musk’s announcement last week, a function that can evaluate and summarize posts about X is coming to Grok 1.5. Additionally, he suggested that Grok include a button to assist users with post writing.In a previous statement, Musk stated that xAI will develop both inside the X app and as a separate app.
According to those in the know, XAI has occasionally been using the historic Twitter headquarters in downtown San Francisco as a meeting place, with X workers using the floor above.
Remote employment options are available for “exceptional candidates,” according to the xAI website, which also mentions that the company maintains offices in Palo Alto and downtown San Francisco.
Positive reactions to X’s partnerships with xAI have been heard from a few X workers. X sales and partnerships employee Alexa Alianiello tweeted last week, “My guess is that Grok is highly underutilized.” “The unparalleled breakdown of what’s happening makes it worth putting up with the sass.”
Offering premium services like Grok, verification, and less advertising to paying customers has been an effort by X to expand its subscription business. Grok is available for an additional $16 per month on the subscription tier. The number of subscribers has not been made public by X.
Although the platform’s subscription business has increased since Musk’s takeover, those revenues are still minor compared to the platform’s past ad revenue, according to outside assessments.
Company Name: Musk Inc.
Musk now has six companies under his control, and the advent of xAI just makes things more complicated. Additionally, it has heightened doubts and inquiries among certain Tesla investors regarding the scope of Musk’s business responsibilities and his capacity to concentrate on the electric vehicle manufacturer. This is because Tesla is the sole publicly traded company that Musk owns.
In addition to X and “other companies,” xAI states on its website that it will collaborate closely with Tesla, and Musk has stated that he believes xAI will contribute value to Tesla.
If all goes according to xAI’s regulatory filing from late last year, the company is hoping to raise $1 billion.
According to some industry insiders, xAI might be seeking a larger sum of money. According to one of the sources, xAI is considering using a portion of the funds to expand its data center infrastructure.
The rumors that xAI is seeking funding have been refuted by Musk. In January, he stated on X that he had not discussed the matter with anyone specifically.
An informal meet-and-greet session was organized by xAI researchers during their December trip to New Orleans for the NeurIPS machine-learning conference. One of the researchers was wearing a blazer bearing the xAI insignia, so there was swag.
Neuroscientist and machine learning researcher Pradeep Reddy Raamana, who attended the xAI conference, stated that, for him, Grok has not been very useful thus far. But he isn’t ignoring Musk’s initiatives or the possible applications of Twitter data. When asked about Elon’s distinct advantage, Raamana responded that he have access to such resources in addition to being the wealthiest guy.
This article was authored by Deepa Seetharaman, Tom Dotan, Micah Maidenberg, and Berber Jin.
