On Thursday, whispers started swirling that his AI startup xAI had secured a massive $15 billion from investors.

The claim original came allegedly from people “familiar with the matter,” and it shot straight into CNBC’s coverage, saying that xAI had just pulled off one of the largest private tech fundraises in recent memory.

But Elon Musk quiky called the whole thing “false” on X, his own social media platform, without offering any more detail. But that hasn’t stopped everyone from trying to piece together what the hell’s really going on.

This new round is supposedly an add-on to the $10 billion raise previously reported back in September, when insiders said xAI was already sitting on a $200 billion valuation. If true, that would shove the AI startup right alongside other massive players like Anthropic and OpenAI, both of which have recently pulled in eye-watering sums in their quest to dominate the foundational model arms race.

xAI struggles with Tesla connections, power struggles, and that Memphis mess

CNBC’s report had claimed that the new cash was gonna be earmarked for the usual suspects: GPUs. A huge portion of that alleged $15 billion is said to be going straight into the pockets of chipmakers, to buy up the graphic processing units needed to fuel xAI’s data-thirsty algorithms, you know, just like every other nerd in this brutal AI race.

That’s not all xAI has going on, as it isn’t just sipping the same Kool-Aid as Tesla, it’s basically drinking straight from the jug. The two are tangled up in more ways than one. Newer Tesla vehicles have xAI’s Grok chatbot baked right into their infotainment systems.

Yeah, the same Grok that’s been slammed left and right for spewing inaccurate junk and even worse, pumping out antisemitic trash and other hate speech. And that’s not the end of it. xAI recently launched Grokipedia, an encyclopedia-style platform that was clearly aiming to take on Wikipedia.

Instead, it turned into yet another magnet for misinformation and chaos, triggering backlash across the board.

Behind the scenes, the financial relationship between Tesla and xAI goes deeper than just software, according to CNBC’s report, which also said that xAI has invested “tens of millions” on Tesla’s energy storage systems, particularly for use at those questionable data centers in Memphis; that’s the battery packs on one hand, and carbon-spewing turbines on the other. Bit of a confusing strategy if you ask anyone who thought Elon was still pushing a green revolution. Safe to say that boat sailed a long time ago.

Elon’s side-hustle AI firm has already stirred plenty of controversy with its sudden, aggressive buildout of data centers in Memphis. The facilities, massive and power-hungry, are powered by natural gas turbines. You read that right. Fossil fuels.

And researchers in the area have been sounding the alarm about emissions and their impact on the city’s already sketchy air quality.

Proxy drama, rejected deals, and a $1 trillion question

Last week’s Tesla shareholder meeting stirred the pot even more. As Cryptopolitan extensively reported, investors were asked to vote on two key issues: a proposed investment by Tesla into xAI, and Elon’s monster CEO pay plan, which could eventually net him close to $1 trillion worth of Tesla shares—if, and only if, the company hits some pretty intense milestones.

The pay plan passed, obviously. But the xAI investment? Not so much. The board didn’t get enough support to go through with it.

Now Tesla’s legal team is apparently weighing “next steps,” as Brandon Ehrhart, Tesla’s general counsel, said during the meeting. Which really just means that this weird corporate entanglement between the car company and the AI startup is not ending any time soon.

And just to throw more gasoline on the fire, remember: xAI acquired X (formerly known as Twitter) in March, in an all-stock deal valued at $33 billion. That decision locked all three of Elon’s worlds (social, automotive, and AI) into a tight, messy knot that no one’s entirely sure how to untangle.

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