xAI was officially founded by Elon Musk in March 2023 with the stated mission to "understand the true nature of the universe" and serve as a competitor to existing Generative AI leaders.

The company has executed several rapid, high-valuation funding rounds:

• Series B (May 2024): xAI officially announced securing $6 billion in funding. The company was valued at $24 billion (post-money valuation) in this round.

• Series C (December 2024): xAI raised another significant round of $6 billion. This round valued the company at $50 billion (post-money valuation).

• X Corp. Acquisition (March 2025): xAI acquired X (formerly Twitter) in an all-stock transaction publicly announced by Musk. The deal valued xAI at $80 billion and X (equity value) at $33 billion (or an enterprise value of $45 billion including debt).

• Series D (June 2025): The company secured a $4.2 billion primary funding round, achieving a post-money valuation of $201.7 billion.

This funding is necessary to cover the astronomical costs of AI development, including the purchase and operation of specialized GPUs. The company leverages X's massive real-time data flow and distribution platform for its models, like its chatbot Grok, which is integrated into the X platform for premium subscribers.

xAI continues to push for rapid scaling, with Musk framing it as a crucial technological race.