Twitter CEO Elon Musk launches AI start-up: X.AI Corp

Elon Musk, Twitter's CEO, and founder of Tesla and SpaceX has founded a new artificial intelligence corporation called X.AI Corp. This comes against the backdrop of Musk changing Twitter's official name to X Corp. and suggested directives over developing an "everything app" called "X", RT reported.

The AI start-up was born in Nevada on March 9 with Elon's designation as a director. Jared Birchall, a former executive at Morgan Stanley who is currently the CEO of Musk's Neuralink company, has been appointed as secretary. 

ChatGPT to be a competitor

OpenAI, the founder of the increasingly used AI-based chat programme ChatGPT, will be a competitor, according to sources quoted by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. X.AI Corp. will try to compete with OpenAI.

Elon assisted in the establishment of OpenAI in 2015, but he resigned from the organisation's board of directors three years later and has subsequently grown sceptical of it, claiming it has turned into a "closed source maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft."

In a tweet, the Twitter CEO said, "OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), [a] non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, [the] maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft."

OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft.

Not what I intended at all.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2023

Musk is rumoured to have put together a team of researchers and software developers for the project and "secured thousands of high-powered GPU processors," according to the Financial Times, even though he has not made his plans public for the AI industry.

Financial Times reported that Musk had negotiations about funding the project with investors in two of his other businesses, SpaceX and Tesla.

The name of the new corporation follows a trend of 'X' that appears throughout several of Musk's ventures; earlier this week, the billionaire rebranded Twitter Inc. as "X Corp."

He has previously made cryptic allusions to ideas for an "everything app" code-named "X," although it is not clear if this is connected to the AI project.

Musk and other tech leaders demand a worldwide "pause" on AI research

Just a few weeks ago, Musk and more than a thousand other researchers and tech leaders signed an open letter warning that AI could offer "profound risks to society and humanity." The letter demanded a worldwide "pause" on AI research for "at least six months" to "give society a chance to adapt" to the quickly developing technological advances. It later turned out that some of the signatories were fake.

Last month, at a Tesla event, Musk remarked, "AI stresses me out," calling it "quite dangerous technology" and acknowledging, "I may have done some things to accelerate it." Given these worries, it's unclear what he will aim to accomplish with X.AI Corp., the most recent in a long series of tech companies Musk has started or led, RT reported.