Elon Musk reportedly plans generative AI start-up to rival ChatGPT and Bard

Billionaire building a team of AI researchers and is in talks with various potential investors

Billionaire businessman Elon Musk. AP Photo

Billionaire businessman Elon Musk is planning to announce a new generative artificial intelligence start-up to rival Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, according to a news media report on Friday.

Mr Musk is building a team of AI researchers and engineers, and he is also in talks with various investors in his other ventures, such as SpaceX and Tesla, about pumping capital into his new AI start-up, British daily newspaper Financial Times reported.

“A bunch of people are investing in it … it’s real and they are excited about it,”a person with direct knowledge of the talks said in a quote to FT.

Mr Musk, co-founder and chief executive of the world’s biggest electric vehicle maker Tesla, has ordered “thousands of high-powered GPU (graphic processing unit) processors” from technology company Nvidia, it added.

GPUs are sophisticated chips capable of running many tasks simultaneously. They're necessary in building generative AI’s large language models that can produce humanlike writing or lifelike images and videos.

Mr Musk, who cofounded the California-based start-up OpenAI in 2015, left its board in 2018 following disagreements with the company's direction.

He has also been critical of the company in recent months, arguing that OpenAI is placing several safety nets to prevent ChatGPT from offering results that might be divisive or offend its users.

Generative AI uses machine learning to produce content such as text, images, video and audio. It can generate novel content, in the right context, instead of merely analysing or acting on the existing data.

The global generative AI market is expected to reach $188.62 billion by 2032, growing at an annual rate of more than 36 per cent from $8.65 billion last year, according to a report by Brainy Insights. The North American region dominated the market in 2022.

Generative AI could also drive a seven per cent — or almost $7 trillion — increase in the global economy and lift productivity growth by 1.5 percentage points over a 10-year period, Goldman Sachs estimated.

Mr Musk has reportedly hired Igor Babuschkin, who recently left DeepMind AI, to lead a group of AI researchers in the endeavour. He is hiring engineers from top AI labs, including DeepMind, FT reported, quoting people with knowledge of his plans.

Mr Musk’s potential entry to the disruptive generative AI industry will add yet another venture to his diverse set of businesses and investments.

The Wall Street Journal also reported on Friday that Mr Musk filed paperwork to start an AI company called X.AI Corp.

He bought microblogging site Twitter for $44 billion in October. He has also cofounded $137 billion rocket maker SpaceX, a neurotechnology research company Neuralink, and founded The Boring Company, an infrastructure and tunnel construction services start-up.

Jared Kushner and Elon Musk watch the Fifa World Cup final match between Argentina and France. Getty Images

Mr Musk attends model and businesswoman Heidi Klum's 2022 Halloween party at Moxy Lower East Side, in New York City Getty

Mr Musk on stage next to Optimus the humanoid robot in Palo Alto, California, in September 2022 AFP

Mr Musk speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing 'Cyber Rodeo' grand opening party, in Austin, Texas, in 2022 AFP

Mr Musk shakes hands with Brazil's then president Jair Bolsonaro, at the event Conecta Amazonia in Porto Feliz, Sao Paulo state, in 2022 AFP

Mr Musk and his mother, Maye Musk, arrive for the 2022 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in 2022 AFP

Mr Musk attends the start of the production at Tesla's Gigafactory in Gruenheide, in 2022 AFP

Mikey Day as a lawyer, Cecily Strong as a judge, and host Mr Musk as Wario during the 'Wario' sketch on NBC's 'Saturday Night Live', in 2021 Getty

Mr Musk and son X Æ A-12 onstage at 'Time' Person of the Year in New York, in 2021 AFP

Mr Musk dancing onstage during a delivery event for Tesla's China-made Model 3 cars in Shanghai, in 2021 Reuters

Mr Musk with Armin Laschet, at the time CDU party federal chairman and prime minister of Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia, at the Tesla Gigafactory in Gruenheide, in 2021 Getty

Mr Musk at the construction site of the Tesla Gigafactory in Gruenheide, near Berlin, Germany, in 2020 EPA

Mr Musk leaves a New York court in 2019, after a hearing in a lawsuit brought against him by the US Securities and Exchange Commission Getty

A prototype of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft in Boca Chica, Texas, in 2019 Reuters

Mr Musk and then partner Grimes at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, in 2018 AFP

From left, Mr Musk, Corning chief executive Wendell Weeks, then US president Donald Trump and Johnson & Johnson chief executive Alex Gorsky at the White House, in 2017 AFP

Mr Musk presents his plan to colonise Mars at the International Astronautics Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2016 EPA

Mr Musk with then Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe after a test drive of the Tesla Model S P85D in Palo Alto, California, in 2015 Reuters

Mr Musk with then wife Talulah Riley at the 2011 British Academy Film Awards in London Getty

Mr Musk after Tesla's initial public offering at the Nasdaq market in New York, in 2010 Reuters

Then US president Barack Obama with Mr Musk on a tour of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2010 Reuters

Mr Musk in the Tesla Roadster electric car at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, in 2009 Reuters

Mr Musk with music producer Quincy Jones at the Tesla Roadster launch party in 2008 AFP

Mr Musk answers questions about the new Tesla Model S all-electric car, at its unveiling in Hawthorne, California, in 2009 AFP

Elon Musk in Los Angeles in 2008. Getty

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk in 2004 Getty

Last week, he reportedly merged Twitter with one of his companies called X Corp. Although Twitter will still function as a social media platform, this could be the entrepreneur's first step towards transforming the company into an “everything app”, similar to China’s WeChat.

The FT report said that his new AI start-up will be a separate entity and he could use Twitter content as data to train its language model and harness Tesla technologies for computing resources.