Elon Musk, who has hinted for months that he wants to build an alternative to the popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot, has announced the formation of what he’s calling xAI, whose goal is to "understand the true nature of the universe.”
On a website unveiled Wednesday, xAI said its team will be led by Musk and staffed by executives who have worked at a broad range of companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence, including Google’s DeepMind, Microsoft and Tesla, as well as academic institutions such as the University of Toronto.
Musk was involved in the creation of OpenAI, the highest-profile AI startup and developer of ChatGPT. But he has frequently and publicly criticized OpenAI since he left the board in 2018, especially after it created a for-profit arm the following year. He has said he believes it to be "effectively controlled by Microsoft.” Microsoft has invested some $13 billion into OpenAI.