Tesla shareholders will vote on investing in xAI: Elon Musk

Tesla shareholders will vote on whether the electric carmaker should invest in xAI, Elon Musk said on Sunday.

Musk was responding to an X user who said it would be unfair for Tesla retail investors if the company isn't allowed to invest in xAI.

“It’s not up to me. If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago,” Musk wrote. “We will have a shareholder vote on the matter.”

His remarks come hours after he confirmed that his rocket company, SpaceX, plans to invest $2 billion into xAI.

The planned investment was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Saturday.

“It would be great, but subject to board and shareholder approval,” Musk wrote on X.

xAI, launched by Musk in July 2023, raised more than $12 billion last year across its Series A, B, and C rounds and was valued at about $50 billion.

Last week, the Financial Times reported that xAI is preparing to raise new funds at a valuation between $170 billion and $200 billion, citing people familiar with the talks.

The fundraising could begin as soon as next month.

In March, Musk announced that xAI had acquired X in an all-stock deal valuing xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, net of its debt.

Musk had purchased X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022 for $44 billion.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is expected to play a major role in the upcoming fundraising, two people familiar with the matter told FT.

Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and left in 2018, has since been a vocal critic of the ChatGPT maker, which was valued at $300 billion in a recent fundraising.

xAI released the fourth version of its Grok chatbot this week, days after it posted antisemitic comments praising Adolf Hitler on Musk’s social media platform X.