Elon Musk launches xAI to rival OpenAI, Google

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla Inc., has announced the launch of a new artificial intelligence company called xAI – to rival the likes of Google and ChatGPT.

Musk, the chief technology officer (CTO) and chairman of Twitter, disclosed this in a tweet on Wednesday. 

“Announcing formation of xAI to understand reality,” he tweeted.

Meanwhile, according to the firm’s website, “the goal of xAI is to understand the true nature of the universe”.

The artificial intelligence firm said the team will be led by Musk, who is also the founder of SpaceX. 

The firm has former researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Tesla and the University of Toronto in its team. 

The AI firm added that Dan Hendrycks, who currently serves as the director of the Center for AI Safety, is to play the advisory role for the team. 

Center for AI Safety is a San Francisco-based organisation that warns against developing AI too quickly.

Hendrycks had in June, initiated an open letter to global leaders that warned that AI was a risk to human existence –at par with pandemics and nuclear war.

In addition, the website said the team will be hosting a “Twitter spaces discussion on July 14, 2023, where listeners can meet the team and ask us questions”.

However, no specific time was given for the discussion. 

The xAI firm was first introduced in April when filings indicated that Musk founded the company in Nevada. 

At the time, it had Musk listed as its director, with Jared Birchall, the director of Musk’s family office, listed as its secretary. 

Musk, whose wealth is built on technological investments, is interested in a major AI organisation.

In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, but withdrew from it in 2018 to avoid a conflict of interest with Tesla.

The billionaire has since openly criticised OpenAI, but suddenly announced work on building something called “TruthGPT”.