Elon Musk’s xAI completes $20 billion funding round with Nvidia backing
New Delhi, Jan 7 : Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, has announced the completion of a $20 billion funding round from investors including Nvidia, Valor Equity Partners and the Qatar Investment Authority.
The company did not disclose individual investment amounts or the split between debt and equity, and named Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research, MGX, Baron Capital Group and Cisco Systems Inc.’s investment group among other investors who participated in the funding.
xAI had planned for roughly $7.5 billion of equity and up to $12.5 billion of debt parked in a special purpose vehicle to buy Nvidia processors. The chips would be rented out for five years, allowing financiers to recoup their investment, according to reports.
The AI startup said the financing will accelerate its infrastructure buildout, speed development and deployment of AI products to billions of users, and fuel research advancing its mission of "understanding the universe".
The firm, which had already raised about $10 billion of corporate equity and debt in 2025, has been burning through about $1 billion per month, the reports said citing sources. Musk had eralier confirmed that xAI is expanding data‑centre capacity in Memphis toward almost 2 gigawatts.
A gigawatt is enough to provide electricity for about 7,50,000 US homes. Musk has publicly discussed plans to build the world’s largest data centre for AI training and previously said Colossus 2 will eventually have 5,50,000 chips from Nvidia, costing tens of billions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) cracked down on X Corp for failing to prevent the generation and circulation of obscene, nude and indecent content on its platform.
The government on Friday directed X Corp to send an action taken report (ATR) “towards immediate compliance for prevention of hosting, generation, publication or transmission, sharing or uploading of obscene, nude, indecent and explicit content through the misuse of Al-based services like ‘Grok’ and xAl’s other services”.
X Corp said that it continues to take action against illegal content on its social media platform, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), and is working with local governments and law enforcement agencies.
The company did not disclose individual investment amounts or the split between debt and equity, and named Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research, MGX, Baron Capital Group and Cisco Systems Inc.’s investment group among other investors who participated in the funding.
xAI had planned for roughly $7.5 billion of equity and up to $12.5 billion of debt parked in a special purpose vehicle to buy Nvidia processors. The chips would be rented out for five years, allowing financiers to recoup their investment, according to reports.
The AI startup said the financing will accelerate its infrastructure buildout, speed development and deployment of AI products to billions of users, and fuel research advancing its mission of "understanding the universe".
The firm, which had already raised about $10 billion of corporate equity and debt in 2025, has been burning through about $1 billion per month, the reports said citing sources. Musk had eralier confirmed that xAI is expanding data‑centre capacity in Memphis toward almost 2 gigawatts.
A gigawatt is enough to provide electricity for about 7,50,000 US homes. Musk has publicly discussed plans to build the world’s largest data centre for AI training and previously said Colossus 2 will eventually have 5,50,000 chips from Nvidia, costing tens of billions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) cracked down on X Corp for failing to prevent the generation and circulation of obscene, nude and indecent content on its platform.
The government on Friday directed X Corp to send an action taken report (ATR) “towards immediate compliance for prevention of hosting, generation, publication or transmission, sharing or uploading of obscene, nude, indecent and explicit content through the misuse of Al-based services like ‘Grok’ and xAl’s other services”.
X Corp said that it continues to take action against illegal content on its social media platform, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), and is working with local governments and law enforcement agencies.