Musk's AI firm files to raise up to $1.5b in equity offering

The news: Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI has filed to raise up to USD1 billion ($1.53 billion) in an equity offering, according to a filing with the US securities regulator.

The numbers: xAI's filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed that the company has already raised USD134.7 million in equity financing from a total offering of USD1 billion.

The context: In 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which has gone on to raise USD10 billion from lead shareholder Microsoft. Musk stepped down from OpenAI's board in 2018, but launched rival firm xAI in July this year, along with its own chatbot Grok last month. The Tesla CEO said in an X post in November that xAI will be integrated into his social media platform, as well as available as a standalone app.