Tesla CEO Elon.Musksaid he will seek board approval to send his artificial intelligence startup xA invest5 billion dollars, which could further entangle his network of tech companies.
If the investment is completed, it could revive questions about conflicts of interest among Musk's network of companies, which also includes spacecraft operator SpaceX and Neuralink, which develops computer-brain interfaces. tesla is seeking to transform itself from an electric car maker into a robotics and artificial intelligence company. Musk has promised to build a fleet of autonomous "robot cabs" and humanoid robots powered by the technology.
Musk posted a poll on social media asking whether Tesla should invest $5 billion in xAI. Out of 958,086 votes cast, 68% of people were in favor of the proposal. Tesla's CEO said he would discuss the proposal with Tesla's board of directors.
Tesla's independence has also been questioned. Earlier this year, a Delaware court threw out the record $56 billion compensation package Tesla awarded Musk, calling the directors "groveling servants of an overbearing master" and criticizing Chairwoman Robyn Denholm for her oversight obligations for taking a "lazy attitude."
Founded in July last year, xAI is developing a chatbot called Grok, which raised $6 billion at an $18 billion valuation in May this year. Musk aims to catch up with rivals OpenAI and Anthropic, who have taken the lead in the race to develop intelligent chatbots. The Tesla CEO admitted in an interview this week that his top AI model is an order of magnitude weaker than OpenAI's.