Elon Musk introduces xAI, a new artificial intelligence company

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, received its official introduction from the tech billionaire on Wednesday.

Musk did so in a succinct tweet he posted early Wednesday afternoon. The tech executive, reportedly worth about $245.1 billion, also added the company’s Twitter handle to the bio of his profile on the social media platform he owns.

“Announcing formation of @xAI to understand reality,” he wrote.

Musk’s unveiling of the company comes roughly four months after he moved to register X.AI as a domestic corporation in Las Vegas. 

ELON MUSK LAUNCHES NEW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COMPANY, XAI

The Musk-led xAI offered a similar mission to the one stated by the billionaire — “to understand the true nature of the universe” — and touted the experience of those belonging to the team on its website. The company said it would field questions Friday during a Twitter Space.

“We have previously worked at DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Tesla and the University of Toronto,” the website said. “We have worked on and led the development of some of the largest breakthroughs in the field including AlphaStar, AlphaCode, Inception, Minerva, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4.”

Google, Microsoft and OpenAI have all been major players in AI, a field that has heated up significantly after the release of ChatGPT from OpenAI late last year. Google’s Bard chatbot competes with it.

Musk helped co-found OpenAI, which has backing from Microsoft.

Earlier this year, Musk indicated that his own version of a “maximum truth-seeking” AI chatbot could be coming as he expressed interest in making such a tool.

The newly debuted xAI identified itself and X Corp as being separate entities; the latter is the private company into which Musk folded Twitter earlier in the year.

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Musk’s new artificial intelligence firm will “work closely with X (Twitter), Tesla, and other companies to make progress toward our mission,” the company noted.

The xAI team “is advised by Dan Hendrycks who currently serves as director of the Center for AI Safety,” according to its website.

Musk has weighed in about AI more than once, raising concerns about it and encouraging regulation. He was a signatory of a March letter that urged AI creators to pump the brakes on training AIs “more powerful than GPT-4” for at least half a year, and he has even gotten together with lawmakers to discuss the field.

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The formation of xAI adds to the number of companies with which Musk has involvement, including Tesla and SpaceX, where he holds the CEO position. The tech billionaire also serves as Twitter’s CTO, a role to which he transitioned from CEO after passing the torch to former NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino, and he founded the Boring Co.

His artificial intelligence company had gained tens of thousands of followers on Twitter as of Wednesday afternoon amid its unveiling.

“What are the most fundamental unanswered questions?” xAI’s first tweet reads.

Adam Sabes and Julia Musto contributed to this report.