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"Board approval & shareholder vote are needed, so this is just
to test the waters," Musk said of the poll which came on the
heels of Tesla posting its lowest profit margin in five years on
price cuts and increased spending on AI projects.
During Tesla's earning conference call, Musk said xAI would be
"helpful in advancing full self-driving and in building up the
new Tesla data center," adding that there are opportunities to
integrate xAI's chatbot, Grok, with Tesla's software.
Nearly 3 hours after the poll was posted, roughly 386,000 people
had participated with 70% voting in favor of the investment.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for
comment, while xAI could not be reached for comment.
Musk, the world's richest person, launched xAI last year, hoping
to build an alternative to ChatGPT. The startup raised $6
billion in a series B funding in May, attaining a post-money
valuation of $24 billion. Backers include Andreessen Horowitz
and Sequoia Capital.
Musk has previously said that he plans for a quarter of xAI to
be owned by investors in X, formerly known as Twitter, which he
bought for $44 billion although the social media firm's value
has plunged since then.
On the earnings call, Musk also dismissed concerns that he may
be diverting resources from Tesla to some of his other
companies.
In June, CNBC reported that he had ordered Nvidia to ship
thousands of AI chips destined for Tesla to xAI and X. Musk said
Tesla's data center was full and there was no place to put the
chips.
Musk is a frequent poller on X. In 2021, he asked Twitter users
about whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stake and
commenced selling shares just days after the poll.
(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin in San Fransisco and Shivani Tanna in
Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Utkarsh Shetti in Bengaluru;
Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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