Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and one of the leading voices against the Generative AI storm brought on by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, recently revealed his plans to create his own Artificial Intelligence (AI) Company, called X.AI Corp. According to Nevada business records, Musk incorporated his company on March 9 and is the company’s only director, with Jared Birchall, Musk’s wealth manager taking the role of its secretary.
The news follows countless reports regarding Musk’s buying of several GPUs for the platform, which are usually used for large AI models. It also follows the hiring of Igor Babuschkin and Manuel Kroiss, deep learning researchers from DeepMind, in order to rival OpenAI’s “ChatGPT”. All of it was part of Musk’s plan to create an “everything app” brand called “X,” with X Corp (formerly Twitter) as its foundation.
The revelations were met with criticism from OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, who took a dig at Musk’s involvement in generative AI. His comments were further supported by an executive closely related to the AI community, who added that Musk’s loose remarks lead to the public having an unrealistic understanding of the AI maturity. Musk, who had been one of the first investors in Deepmind, had helped set up a $1 billion OpenAI research lab, and is often actively involved in the AI debate, is known for expressing extreme concerns about AI like it becoming sentient or more dangerous than nukes.
Interestingly, 13 days before the incorporation of X.AI Corp, Musk was one of the signatories of an open letter known as “Pause Giant AI Experiments”. This letter called for an immediate halt on giant AI experiments and the introduction of seven policies that would involve third-party auditing, certification, and regulations in the AI industry.
About X.AI Corp
X.AI Corp is Elon Musk’s foray into the Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry, aiming to create an “everything app” brand called “X”. The venture is separate from Musk’s current companies but will use data from Twitter to train its language model. Tesla is also reported to be providing computing resources for this new venture. Musk reportedly bought numerous GPUs for the platform, usually used for AI training, and is seeking funding from investors from SpaceX and Tesla. He has drawn inspiration from Tencent’s WeChat — a comprehensive super-app in China that offers messaging, gaming, photo-sharing, ride services, food delivery, banking, and shopping, all in one platform — aiming to create a similar app outside of China with cryptocurrency functionality.
About Elon Musk
Elon Musk is an engineer, industrial designer, technology entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; and founder of The Boring Company. He has also envisioned the future of transportation, solar energy, and AI, among other inventions. Musk has been recognized as a leader in his field and is often involved in intense debates about the potential risks of AI. Despite this, Musk has always been a cheerleader for AI, believing it to have tremendous potential for benefiting humanity. He believes that his upcoming venture and research into AI will be a significant achievement, with the potential to propel humanity into a more advanced era.
