Company
xAI
xAI is the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk, developer of the Grok large language model family.
- Founded
- 2023
- HQ
- United States (Bay Area / Palo Alto, California)
- Status
- Private
Overview
xAI is the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk, developer of the Grok large language model family. In physical AI, xAI's Grok serves as the conversational and reasoning layer of Tesla's Optimus humanoid, paired with Tesla's FSD-derived neural networks in a dual-brain architecture. The same Grok-plus-Tesla-compute pattern underpins the "Digital Optimus" software-agent initiative announced in 2026. Tesla announced a 2 billion dollar investment in xAI in 2026, formalizing the technology integration between Musk's AI and robotics ventures.
Verified record
- Verified deployments
- None on file
- Active incidents
- None on file
DEPLOY Intelligence
Market intelligence for physical AI
Analyst-grade signals, competitive tracking, and investment context across the global physical AI landscape. Launching 2026.
Key facts
Founded
2023 by Elon Musk
Developer of
the Grok large language model family
Physical-AI relationship
Grok powers the conversational layer of Tesla Optimus (confirmed by Musk, June 2025)
Tesla investment
$2 billion announced 2026, formalizing the integration with Tesla
Grok in Tesla vehicles
Rolled out across 2025 to 2026
Data & sources
Press releases
2
News coverage
8
Web sources
1
11 sources backing this record.View all →
Founders (1)
- Elon Muskno longer at company
Former / Previously (1)
- Elon Musk founderreported, not verified
Safety record
No incidents on record for xAI.
Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.
Full safety record: incidents, sourcing, and exposure data →
Brains developed (1)
- Grok (xAI)foundation-model · pilot
Recent coverage
xAI in third-party press
Sources (11)
- https://x.ai/
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/28/tesla-invested-2b-in-elon-musks-xai/
- https://fortune.com/2026/01/28/tesla-earnings-2-billion-xai-investment-elon-musk-ends-model-s-model-x-optimus/
- https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/28/elon-musk-says-xai-has-acquired-x-in-deal-that-values-social-media-site-at-33-billion.html
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-28/musk-says-that-his-xai-startup-has-acquired-x-for-33-billion
- https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/01/elon-musk-xai-raises-10-billion-in-debt-and-equity.html
- https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/09/elon-musks-xai-launches-grok-4-alongside-a-300-monthly-subscription/
- https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/15/xai-says-it-has-fixed-grok-4s-problematic-responses/
- https://x.ai/colossus
- https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/21/groks-ai-companions-drove-downloads-but-its-latest-model-is-the-one-making-money/
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/29/elon-musk-spacex-tesla-xai-merger-talks-ipo-reuters/
Common questions
- What is xAI?
- xAI is the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk, developer of the Grok large language model family. In physical AI, xAI's Grok serves as the conversational and reasoning layer of Tesla's Optimus humanoid, paired with Tesla's FSD-derived neural networks in a dual-brain architecture. The same Grok-plus-Tesla-compute pattern underpins the "Digital Optimus" software-agent initiative announced in 2026. Tesla announced a 2 billion dollar investment in xAI in 2026, formalizing the technology integration between Musk's AI and robotics ventures.
- What does xAI make?
- xAI is a robot brain developer: 1 foundation model or autonomy stack on the DEPLOY registry are credited to xAI.
- Is xAI publicly traded?
- No. xAI is privately held and not publicly traded, per the DEPLOY registry.
- Where is xAI headquartered?
- xAI is headquartered in United States (Bay Area / Palo Alto, California).
- Is xAI a top robotics company?
- On DEPLOY's intelligence score, which blends verified deployments, funding, hiring, media, safety, and IP signals, xAI ranks in roughly the top 3% of companies tracked by the registry.
- When was xAI founded?
- xAI was founded in 2023.
- Is xAI safe?
- xAI has no incidents on record in the DEPLOY registry. This does not constitute a safety guarantee; it reflects the incidents DEPLOY has tracked and verified to date.
Methodology: Verified · 11 sources (2 primary) · last reviewed 2026-05-31
Verification posture
Verified
High confidence
Review state
Stable
Last reviewed 2026-05-31
Sources by quality tier
- 5
- secondary-industry-publication
- Industry publication
- 3
- secondary-established-publication
- Established publication
- 2
- primary-company-ir
- Company IR disclosure
- 1
- unclassified
- Unclassified source
The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.
Methodology surface for xAI.In the press
Recent coverage mentioning xAI from third-party publications. Automatically surfaced; not part of the verified registry record.
The AI that spawned MechaHitler and deepfake porn puts on a suit to become legal advisor and Excel jockey
The newly renamed SpaceXAI wants you to believe little ol' Grok is all grown up
SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.5, which Elon describes as an ‘Opus-class model’
Elon Musk's tech company released the newest version of Grok on Wednesday, promising a cheaper, more efficient alternative to other powerful AI models.
Lerer Hippeau Seeing Second Generation of AI Startups
AI is dominating venture capital, with OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI attracting a huge share of global funding. Eric Hippeau, managing partner at Lerer Hippeau, joins Ed Ludlow on…
SpaceXAI, Cursor Unveil Grok AI Model for Coding, Finance Tasks
SpaceXAI has unveiled a new artificial intelligence model built in partnership with AI coding startup Cursor that’s meant to be more adept at finance, legal and coding tasks, in a…
SpaceXAI plans to launch new model with Cursor as soon as Wednesday, The Information reports
Thales acquires Exail Technologies stake as it expands undersea warfare footprint
Italian shipbuilding company Fincantieri also announced today an agreement to acquire four underwater technology firms.
Thales to buy French underwater-drone maker Exail in $4.5 billion deal
Industry champions in France and Italy move to consolidate their positions in a growing market for unmanned underwater naval equipment.
Thales to buy French underwater-drone maker Exail in $4.5 billion deal
Industry champions in France and Italy move to consolidate their positions in a growing market for unmanned underwater naval equipment.
xAI launches global recruitment drive for Chinese AI tutors
xAI has posted a Chinese AI Tutor position on the recruitment platform Greenhouse as part of its efforts to improve the Chinese-language capabilities of its flagship large…
Machine-readable surfaces
- Markdown mirror: /companies/xai.md
- RSS feed: /companies/xai/feed.xml
- JSON-LD: embedded in this page’s head
- REST API: /v1/companies/d7bc30aa-e892-42f7-a58a-e172534fec48
- Revision history: /companies/xai/history
- Data documentation: /data
- Query this programmatically: Deploy MCP
Video
This chip runs AI on light, not electricity. German deeptech Q.ANT ran a diffusion model and an xLSTM on its second-gen photonic chip at ISC 2026, targeting up
How does a robot finish drywall faster than a full crew? Canvas's AI 1200CX sprays and sands to a Level 4/5 finish, cutting schedules up to 60% and capturing 9
An AI drone just flew a live Army mission solo. Northrop's Lumberjack flew autonomously in a 101st Airborne test, tied into the Palantir-built Maven Smart Syst
Can a drone be built to track another drone on its own? VisionWave unveiled D-FLY at Eurosatory 2026, an autonomous interceptor inside its STRATUM battlefield-
How does a self-driving mining truck keep working where there's no network? Caterpillar and Nvidia are putting digital twins and edge computing onto mining mac
41 driverless trucks now haul Doritos with no driver. PepsiCo and Gatik now run 41 fully driverless box trucks across Texas, Arizona and Arkansas, delivering t
xAI turns one photo into a clip with sound. Grok Imagine 1.5 makes 720p clips with synced audio from a single image, now ranked #1 on the Image-to-Video Arena.
Why is LG sending its home robot to the factory before the living room? LG is deploying 100 CLOi D humanoids this month at a Seoul 'robot data factory,' scalin
A hospital robot just got a 10x smarter brain. Diligent's Moxi 2.0 runs on NVIDIA IGX Thor with ~10x compute to navigate busy corridors. It already does 1.25M+
Humanoid robots go to work on a vertical farm. Agroz and UBTECH are deploying the Walker S humanoid into AI-run vertical farms in Malaysia, with rollout slated
DEPLOY Intelligence Score
45.2/ 100
6-month trend
Analysis
Moderate signals across dimensions. Continued tracking recommended.
Signal flags
Dimension breakdown
DEPLOY Intelligence scores are computed from verified registry data: confirmed deployments, disclosed funding rounds, regulatory filings, active job listings, video viewership, and press coverage. Confidence ratings reflect data availability. Scores update nightly.
DEPLOY Indices — verified vs claimed
Last computed: Jul 12, 2026
Intelligence layerxAI on the deployment map
Where xAI's robots are verified operating. Explore the deployment map by place and type.