<p>\Investors close to Elon Musk are in talks to help his artificial-intelligence startup xAI raise $3 billion in a round that would value the company at $18 billion, the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> reported on Friday.</p>.<p>Venture capital firm Gigafund, and Steve Jurvetson are among the backers considering investing in the round, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.</p>.Elon Musk's xAI to enable chatbot Grok for all premium subscribers of X.<p>The WSJ report also said that a co-founder of another venture firm is also among the backers. However, it did not name the person or the firm.</p>.<p>Terms of the xAI fundraising were not finalized and the plans could change, the Journal said, adding that current fundraising talks have gathered momentum recently.</p>.<p>xAI could not be immediately reached for comment. Musk's office did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.</p>.<p>Seeking an alternative to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet's Google, Musk launched xAI last year.</p>.<p>Earlier this year, Musk said xAI was not in talks with investors to secure funding, following a media report about the startup raising up to $6 billion.</p>.<p>The Financial Times in January reported xAI was in talks to raise funding at a valuation of $20 billion.</p>.<p>"xAI is not raising capital and I have had no conversations with anyone in this regard," Musk said at that time. xAI in March launched an enhanced version of its chatbot Grok - named Grok-1.5, a chatbot rivaling OpenAI's ChatGPT.</p>.<p>The chatbot is available to use by some users of X, formerly known as Twitter. </p>
<p>\Investors close to Elon Musk are in talks to help his artificial-intelligence startup xAI raise $3 billion in a round that would value the company at $18 billion, the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> reported on Friday.</p>.<p>Venture capital firm Gigafund, and Steve Jurvetson are among the backers considering investing in the round, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.</p>.Elon Musk's xAI to enable chatbot Grok for all premium subscribers of X.<p>The WSJ report also said that a co-founder of another venture firm is also among the backers. However, it did not name the person or the firm.</p>.<p>Terms of the xAI fundraising were not finalized and the plans could change, the Journal said, adding that current fundraising talks have gathered momentum recently.</p>.<p>xAI could not be immediately reached for comment. Musk's office did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.</p>.<p>Seeking an alternative to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet's Google, Musk launched xAI last year.</p>.<p>Earlier this year, Musk said xAI was not in talks with investors to secure funding, following a media report about the startup raising up to $6 billion.</p>.<p>The Financial Times in January reported xAI was in talks to raise funding at a valuation of $20 billion.</p>.<p>"xAI is not raising capital and I have had no conversations with anyone in this regard," Musk said at that time. xAI in March launched an enhanced version of its chatbot Grok - named Grok-1.5, a chatbot rivaling OpenAI's ChatGPT.</p>.<p>The chatbot is available to use by some users of X, formerly known as Twitter. </p>