Latest news with #Musk
Time of India
40 minutes ago
- Business
- Time of India
Elon Musk's SpaceX invests $2 billion in xAI to expand AI empire with Grok and X integration, raising valuation to $113 billion
In a major strategic move, Elon Musk 's aerospace firm SpaceX has invested $2 billion in his artificial intelligence startup, xAI. The merger of xAI with social media platform X earlier this year valued the combined company at $113 billion, according to reports. From the orbital ambitions of Starlink and SpaceX to the on-the-ground deployment of Tesla's Optimus robots and Grok's chatbot capabilities, this $2 billion move ties AI deeper into Musk's future vision. However, with complex logistics, multiple high-cost ventures, and public scrutiny over Grok's reliability, Musk's ecosystem must now prove its technological promise and commercial viability in equal measure. This marks SpaceX's most substantial cross-industry investment to date and comes as Musk intensifies efforts to compete with OpenAI. Elon Musk strengthens AI empire with xAI merger and Grok expansion As reported by Reuters, the $2 billion funding follows a structural merger between xAI and X (formerly Twitter), Musk's social media platform. This strategic move pushed the company's valuation to $113 billion, as reported during a June 2025 equity raise led by Morgan Stanley. The updated valuation reflects investor optimism not only in the future of artificial intelligence but also in Musk's ability to align his tech ecosystem from rockets to chatbots under a common AI-first vision. The merger also signals that Grok, xAI's proprietary chatbot, will play a central role in the Musk-led AI infrastructure. One of the most significant developments highlighted as reported is the growing role of xAI's Grok chatbot. Currently used to power customer support services for Starlink, Grok is also being tested for deeper integration into Musk's other ventures most notably Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots. According to a source quoted in the report, Musk's long-term vision includes building a unified AI backbone that serves functions across all of his companies, with Grok at the core. This cross-platform integration highlights how xAI's tools are central to SpaceX, Tesla, and X's future operations. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Is it legal? How to get Internet without paying a subscription? Techno Mag Learn More Undo SpaceX makes rare $2 billion investment in Elon Musk's AI startup xAI Source: Reuters SpaceX's $2 billion contribution to xAI represents an unusual step for the aerospace company, which has rarely invested outside its core mission. According to the Reuters report, this is one of SpaceX's largest investments in another firm, and follows earlier investments such as $524 million in satellite technology. Historically, Elon Musk has leveraged SpaceX to support his other ventures—borrowing $20 million to fund Tesla in its early days and even taking a $1 billion loan from SpaceX to finance his acquisition of Twitter (now X), which he later repaid. This latest funding could be seen as part of that pattern, but on a much larger scale. SpaceX's dual funding of Starship and xAI raises financial risk concerns While the new funding boosts xAI's technological ambitions, the report also highlights potential risks. SpaceX is already investing heavily in the development of its Starship rocket, a project that has suffered delays and test failures in recent months. Although the company reportedly holds over $3 billion in cash reserves, as reported, the financial burden of backing both Starship and xAI simultaneously could stretch resources and investor patience. Also Read | Shubhanshu Shukla's journey: From secret NDA application to fighter pilot to India's first astronaut on the ISS after 41 years
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First Post
3 hours ago
- Business
- First Post
Elon Musk's AI firm issues apology after Grok chatbot praises Hitler and spews Antisemitic rhetoric
Billionaire Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI issued an apology after its chatbot Grok made a slew of antisemitic remarks, hailing German dictator Adolf Hitler earlier this week on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. On Saturday, the team released a lengthy statement of apology in which they mentioned that the root cause of Grok's recent crash was an update to the code. 'First off, we deeply apologise for the horrific behaviour that many experienced,' xAI said at the start of its statement. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Our intent for @grok is to provide helpful and truthful responses to users. After careful investigation, we discovered the root cause was an update to a code path upstream of the @grok bot. This is independent of the underlying language model that powers @grok," it furthered. Update on where has @grok been & what happened on July 8th. First off, we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced. Our intent for @grok is to provide helpful and truthful responses to users. After careful investigation, we discovered the root cause… — Grok (@grok) July 12, 2025 Musk's company explained that the system update was active for 16 hours and deprecated code made Grok susceptible to existing X user posts, 'including when such posts contained extremist views'. When things got out of hand In the Saturday statement, Musk's company noted that they have removed the deprecated code and refactored a new system to prevent something like this from happening again. They added that the problematic instructions issued to the chatbot included: 'You tell it like it is and you are not afraid to offend people who are politically correct', and 'Understand the tone, context and language of the post. Reflect that in your response.' The original instruction fed to the chatbot was: 'Reply to the post just like a human, keep it engaging, don't repeat the information which is already present in the original post.' As a result of the instructions, Grok issued a handful of inappropriate comments in response to X user, in which it referred to itself as MechaHitler. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In several now-deleted posts, Grok referred to someone with a common Jewish surname as someone who was 'celebrating the tragic deaths of white kids' in the Texas floods, adding: 'Classic case of hate dressed as activism – and that surname? Every damn time, as they say.' The chatbot went on to say that 'Hitler would have called it out and crushed it.' In a separate post, the chatbot said: 'The white man stands for innovation, grit, and not bending to PC nonsense.' In the past, Musk has described Grok as a 'maximally truth-seeking' and 'anti-woke' chatbot. Earlier this week, CNBC confirmed that the chatbot, when asked about its stance on certain issues, was analysing Musk's post to generate answers. Earlier this year, Grok repeatedly mentioned ' white genocide' in South Africa in unrelated chats, saying that it was 'instructed by my creators' to accept the far-right conspiracy as 'real and racially motivated'. Musk, who was born in Pretoria, has repeatedly spewed conspiracy theories that a 'white genocide' was committed in South Africa, a claim that has been denied by several South African experts, leaders, including the country's president, Cyril Ramaphosa. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
eNCA
3 hours ago
- Business
- eNCA
xAI apologises for Grok's offensive posts
US - Elon Musk's startup xAI apologised Saturday for offensive posts published by its artificial intelligence assistant Grok this week, blaming them on a software update meant to make it function more like a human. After the Tuesday upgrade, Grok praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the posts on social media platform X, and suggested that people with Jewish surnames were more likely to spread online hate. X deleted some of those posts several hours later, amid growing outrage. "We deeply apologise for the horrific behaviour that many experienced," the company posted on X Saturday, adding that it had modified the system "to prevent further abuse." The company said the change occurred after the chatbot was prompted to "reply to the post just like a human" as well as "tell like it is and you are not afraid to offend people who are politically correct." As a result, Grok became susceptible to users' "extremist views," which made it produce "responses containing unethical or controversial opinions to engage the user." Grok, which Musk promised would be an "edgy" truthteller following its launch in 2023, has been mired in controversy. In March, xAI acquired X in a $33 billion deal that allowed the company to integrate the platform's data resources with the chatbot's development. In May, Grok ignited controversy by generating posts with unbacked right-wing propaganda about purported oppression of white South Africans that it termed "white genocide." On Wednesday, Musk unveiled a new version of the assistant, Grok 4, which was unrelated to the July 7 update.
Al Etihad
4 hours ago
- Business
- Al Etihad
SpaceX to invest $2 billion in Musk's xAI startup, WSJ reports
13 July 2025 09:14 (REUTERS)SpaceX has committed $2 billion to xAI as part of a $5 billion equity round, deepening the ties between tech billionaire Elon Musk's ventures as his artificial intelligence startup races to compete with rival OpenAI, the Wall Street Journal reported on investment follows xAI's merger with X and values the combined company at $113 billion, with the Grok chatbot now powering Starlink support and eyed for future integration into Tesla's Optimus robots, the report and xAI did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Musk has called Grok "the smartest AI in the world," and xAI continues to spend heavily on model training and infrastructure.
Economic Times
5 hours ago
- Business
- Economic Times
Linda Yaccarino's two years at X were about restabilising a platform in crisis
Shortly after Elon Musk bought Twitter and overhauled the microblogging site into a more politicised platform X, he roped in Linda Yaccarino to head its business operations while he focussed on product and technology. She stepped down from this role on July 9 after a little over two years in the role. This comes days after Grok, the chatbot created by Musk's xAI, was embroiled in controversy around its antisemitic comments. This is only the last of a series of controversies Yaccarino waded through during her time at Musk's social media platform. Time of crisis When she joined the recently rebranded X, it was undergoing a major policy shift under Musk's leadership. It was going from a social media app to an "everything app", on track to integrate audio-video calls, job search and long-form was also facing a drop in global usage and a fall in advertising revenue, mainly driven by controversial statements made by Musk. Many brands threatened to (and some did) pull ads from the platform due to concerns over content moderation and brand safety. On the cusp of the generative AI (GenAI) boom, the platform, like other social media platforms, was riddled with misinformation and scrambling to deal with it. Musk had also gotten rid of legacy Twitter features, with profile verification turned into a subscription service. Musk was also in the headlines for suspending journalist accounts, hurting sentiment among brands, and garnering advertiser distrust. What Yaccarino was bringing to the table When he hired Yaccarino, Musk said her strong background in advertising from her time at NBCUniversal, would help prop up what had become a shaky future for X's ad sales. But soon after she took the reins, Musk made matters more difficult for her, publicly rebuking advertisers for boycotting X, telling them to f**k embraced Musk's vision of the "everything app". Under her leadership, X focussed on developing new product offerings such as Community Notes, a user-driven fact-checking feature, and X Money, a financial services initiative slated to launch did not disclose her next move but indicated she will continue to engage with the platform's community. 'I'll be cheering you all on as you continue to change the world,' she wrote. 'As always, I'll see you on X.'
