Elon Musk has big plans for his startup xAI. A key part: using other companies, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The billionaire’s year-old artificial-intelligence bet is relying on talent, data, and hardware from his other businesses to help it develop what he has said will become the most powerful AI in the world by December.
So far, xAI has hired at least 11 employees who worked at Tesla, according to xAI’s website and LinkedIn profiles. That includes six who have worked directly on the Autopilot team focused on AI-powered self-driving technology that Musk has said is pivotal for Tesla’s future.
The startup has leased computer chips critical for AI — called graphic processing units, or GPUs — from his social media platform X, according to people familiar with the matter, and it boasts access to real-time X data.
Musk also has asked for GPUs that were reserved for Tesla to be redirected to xAI and X. He has talked publicly about the troves of visual data that Tesla collects, which he has said could serve as a resource to train xAI’s models, and said last fall that X shareholders will own 24% of xAI.
CNBC reported Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is asking the Tesla board if it’s looked into CEO Elon Musk’s use of company resources to benefit his other ventures, including SpaceX and xAI.
“Tesla’s Board of Directors appears to be failing to meet its fiduciary duties to Tesla’s shareholders by neglecting to address company CEO Elon Musk’s apparent conflicts of interest,” Warren wrote in a 10-page letter to Tesla Chairwoman Robyn Denholm on Thursday. Musk also operates Neuralink and The Boring Co.
Warren sits on both the Senate’s Banking and Armed Services committees, and has expressed similar concerns in the past, including requests to the SEC to investigate Musk and Tesla. She also sent correspondence to Denholm in late 2022 after Musk sold billions of dollars worth of his Tesla shares in part to finance a leveraged buyout of Twitter, which he later rebranded X.
CleanTechnica reported the social media platform X seems to be in real trouble. Since billionaire Elon Musk acquired the site for $44 billion in 2022, it appears that X revenue stream have plummeted.
The bottom line has gotten so band that Musk has sued a global advertising alliance and several major companies, including Unilever, Mars, and CVS Health. He’s accusing them of unlawfully conspiring to shun his social network and to intentionally drive X revenue loss through a “massive advertiser boycott.”
In my opinion, Elon Musk appears to be having difficulties with X (formally Twitter). It is unclear to me why he would move data – perhaps provided by X users — to xAI.