Tesla to hold shareholder vote on whether to invest in xAI
CNN —
Tesla will hold a shareholder vote on whether Elon Musk's carmaker should invest in his artificial intelligence startup xAI, the billionaire said Sunday.
'If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago,' Musk said in a post on his social media platform X, which itself is a part of xAI. 'We will have a shareholder vote on the matter.'
Musk has been pouring resources from his other companies into xAI as he seeks to compete with AI leaders like OpenAI, Meta and Google. In March, xAI acquired X, which it already used for training data and to distribute its chatbot, Grok. And on Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk's space company, SpaceX, is set to invest $2 billion into xAI.
Securing an investment for xAI from Tesla could be somewhat more complicated, given that it is a publicly traded company, and one whose investors have already been antsy about Musk's priorities in recent months. Tesla shareholders concerned with the scale of Musk's political involvement — as well as his leadership role in at least three other companies — have called for him to dedicate at least 40 hours per week to his role as Tesla CEO, or for the board to set 'ground rules' around his outside activities.
Musk previously pushed back on the idea that Tesla could merge with xAI.
Shares of Tesla (TSLA) ticked up slightly early Monday but remain down more than 16% from the start of the year.
Tesla said last week that it will hold its annual shareholder meeting on November 6 — an announcement that came after dozens of angry shareholders demanded to know why it was taking so long to schedule the event.
xAI has rapidly racked up significant investment, and not just from Musk's own companies.
Last May, it raised $6 billion from investors including Sequoia Capital, Andreesen Horowitz, and Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, boosting its valuation to $24 billion. When xAI bought X in March, Musk said the value of the combined company was $80 billion. More recently, xAI has sought to raise $10 billion at a valuation of $200 billion, Bloomberg has reported.
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