Elon Musk’s new AI startup xAI to take on OpenAI’s ChatGPT

Musk announced that xAI will try to 'understand the true nature of the universe’. 

Elon Musk announced his long awaited AI based venture on Twitter on July 12. During an hour-long Twitter spaces event, Musk announced the formation of xAI, the AI startup, "to understand reality". xAI’s company website mentions that the goal of xAI is to "understand the true nature of the universe."

Musk, who also served as the co-founder of ChatGPT parent OpenAI till 2018, has said that he plans to build a safer AI with xAI. Since moving on from OpenAI, Musk has heavily criticised OpenAI, even saying he was working on an AI which can be called “TruthGPT.”

Announcing formation of @xAI to understand reality

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2023

Musk currently also heads Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, and will also be leading xAI as well. However, the website says that it will be a separate company from X Corp, but will work closely with Twitter, Tesla, and other companies to "make progress towards our mission".

The team of engineers behind the new startup have previously worked on AI softwares like OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, and DeepMind. The team behind xAI is advised by Dan Hendrycks, who is the director of Center for AI Safety.

During the Twitter spaces discussion, Musk says that xAI is going to “be pro-humanity from the standpoint that humanity is just much more interesting than not-humanity”. 

The website says that people can speak with the team during a Twitter Spaces chat on Friday, July 14, where they will reveal more details about the AI.