xAI: Elon Musk denies his AI startup is raising funds days after Taylor Swift deepfakes are shared on Twitter

Elon Musk took to his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to deny claims reported in the media that his artificial intelligence startup xAI is seeking to raise billions of dollars in capital.

The statement comes after the spread of AI generated explicit images on X (which Musk bought for $44 billion in October 2022) on Thursday. The images, generated using AI technology, and shared on X by a user of the website, were sexually explicit fakes of pop star Taylor Swift.

Musk has warned about the dangers of AI in the past, and seemed to be confronted by the darker side of the technology this week as Swift supporters demanded the fake images be removed from the platform.

What has Elon Musk said about xAI?

Musk reshared a post from X News Daily which read: “The Financial Times has reported that @xAI is seeking investments up to $6BN, for a valuation of 20BN. Note: Elon has generally denied the numerous recent reports claiming that xAI is raising money.”

He wrote: “xAI is not raising capital and I have had no conversations with anyone in this regard”.

Musk has not spoken about the spread of explicit AI images of Taylor Swift on X, though it has been reported that the singer may sue Musk over the incident, whilst her supporters were furious about the time it took for the images to be removed. One image remained on X for 17 hours and was viewed tens of millions of times.

What is xAI?

xAI is a startup founded by Musk in April 2023, ahead of the launch of the Grok AI chatbot in November that year. Currently, Grok is only available to X Premium users.

The stated purpose of xAI is to “understand the true nature of the universe”, though it’s not yet clear how Musk plans to develop the project.

What has Elon Musk said about AI in the past?

Musk has previously spoken of his fears about artificial intelligence. In an interview with Business Insider he said it was something to be ‘concerned about’ and advocated for a regulatory body to oversee the technology. 

He added: “It's quite a dangerous technology. I fear I may have done some things to accelerate it.”