Elon Musk publicly denied reports that his artificial intelligence company, xAI, is currently raising capital, contradicting a CNBC article published earlier on Friday which claimed the startup was securing $10 billion at a staggering $200 billion post-money valuation. Musk took to his social media platform X to dismiss the story as “fake news,” asserting that “xAI is not raising any capital right now.” The CNBC report had suggested that the funding would be used to expand data center capacity with advanced Nvidia and AMD processors and to recruit top AI talent.
xAI has been aggressively scaling its computational resources to compete more effectively in the rapidly evolving AI sector, particularly against established players like OpenAI and Anthropic. The startup recently unveiled “Colossus,” a supercomputing cluster based in Memphis, Tennessee, billed as the world’s largest of its kind. Despite Musk’s denial, industry analysts note that such a valuation—more than double the $75 billion figure reported by Pitchbook in July—would instantly position xAI among the world’s most valuable private companies, behind only OpenAI, ByteDance, and Musk’s own SpaceX.
The AI industry continues to attract enormous investor interest despite concerns over sustainability and spending. Recent months have seen record-breaking funding rounds, including Anthropic’s $13 billion raise at a $183 billion valuation and OpenAI’s discussions that could value it near $500 billion. In June, Morgan Stanley reported that xAI had secured $5 billion in debt financing alongside a $5 billion strategic equity investment, underscoring the vast capital requirements for competing at the forefront of AI infrastructure and model development.
Musk founded xAI in July 2023 as a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, emphasizing a vision for more transparent and decentralized artificial intelligence. His swift denial of the funding rumor reflects both his active management of public narrative and the highly speculative nature of valuations in the AI space. Whether or not xAI pursues additional financing in the near future, the company remains a central player in the global race for AI supremacy.
