Elon Musk's xAI Poised for $100 Million Milestone with Grok's Standalone Debut, Sets Sights on Rivaling ChatGPT
1min read Elon Musk's generative artificial intelligence startup, xAI, is reportedly set to break the $100 million annual revenue mark, as it gears up to introduce a standalone application of its chatbot, Grok, possibly as early as next month. Sources reveal that a substantial portion of xAI's revenue comes from Musk's other ventures, primarily through Grok's current role restricted to users of the X social network, formerly known as Twitter, and its utilization in customer service functions for SpaceX's Starlink internet services.
The upcoming release of the independent Grok chatbot signifies a direct challenge to similar products like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, the latter of which was launched on iOS earlier this month. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in December 2015 before departing due to divergent visions, has since filed legal actions against OpenAI and Microsoft.
In October, xAI unveiled its first application programming interface (API), featuring a model known as "grok-beta." The pricing for this model is set at $5 million per million input tokens or $15 million per million output tokens. The specifics of whether these models are Grok-2 or Grok-2 mini remain undisclosed.
Earlier this month, xAI secured $60 billion in new funding, driving the company's valuation to a significant $500 billion. Musk announced on the X platform that a portion of these funds will support xAI's large-scale data center in Memphis, which is equipped with 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs. The construction of this data center spanned 122 days.
Back in July, Musk proposed an ambitious plan to seek the Tesla board's approval for a $50 billion investment in xAI, following a nearly two-thirds majority support in an online vote. This move underscores Musk's strategic vision to bolster xAI's development and competitive edge in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.