(Reuters) -Elon Musk ruled out a merger between Tesla and xAI but said he plans to hold a shareholder vote on investment in the artificial intelligence startup by the automaker, in the latest step to deepen integration across his business empire.
His comments followed a Wall Street Journal report on Saturday that SpaceX, Musk’s rocket firm, will invest $2 billion in xAI as part of a $5 billion funding round aimed at keeping pace with rivals, including OpenAI in the capital-intensive AI race.
Musk, Tesla and xAI have not responded to Reuters requests for comment.
The billionaire’s companies already share close ties. XAI’s Grok chatbot is rolling out to the automaker’s vehicles, and Tesla engineers assisted Musk after his 2022 buyout of Twitter, the social media platform now known as X.
Responding to a user post on X asking Tesla investors if they supported a merger between the two companies, Musk on Monday replied “No.” He had said on Sunday he would ask Tesla shareholders to vote on whether the automaker can invest in xAI.
“If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago,” Musk had said on X, having previously signaled that close ties between the companies could help advance Tesla’s autonomous-driving ambitions.
Integrating technology, talent and financial backing is a theme that runs across Musk’s empire of companies. Earlier this year, xAI acquired Musk’s X in a $33 billion deal that valued the combined group at $80 billion at the time.
That deal meant the X platform would come in handy to further distribute xAI products, while also providing a real-time feed of users’ posts, screenshots and massive amounts of other data.
Investments into xAI would help Grok better compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT by increasing capital toward research and development.
xAI recently launched Grok 4, its latest flagship AI model. While Musk has touted it as “the smartest AI in the world,” Grok still lags ChatGPT in terms of usage.
Tesla had last week said it was planning to hold its annual shareholder meeting on November 6, setting the date a day after a group of 27 investors pushed for it, citing legal obligations.
(Reporting by Deborah Sophia and Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Arun Koyyur)
