Oman Investment Authority acquires stake in Elon Musk's xAI

The Grok generative AI chatbot is a rival to Google's Gemini and market leader OpenAI's ChatGPT. Reuters

The Oman Investment Authority has acquired a stake in Elon Musk's xAI, as the sultanate's sovereign fund seeks to boost its presence in the artificial intelligence sector.

The size and value of the fund's stake in the company were not disclosed. The move will allow the sultanate to "invest in advanced technologies within various investment sectors", the Oman News Agency reported on Wednesday.

San Francisco-based xAI is the developer of the Grok generative AI chatbot, which is a rival to the likes of Google's Gemini and market leader OpenAI's ChatGPT.

The investment is "one of the opportunities for Oman to benefit from world-leading technologies in various fields", the agency quoted OIA chairman Abdul Salam bin Mohammed as saying.

It further enhances the technology portfolio of the OIA, which is also an investor in another Musk company, SpaceX. The OIA has so far reached a 37 per cent internal rate of return on investment from the SpaceX funding, amid the company's continued satellite launches and overall global expansion, the ONA said.

“The Omani partnership in the xAI platform will bear fruit when we build together a superior artificial intelligence that enables us to solve many problems," Mr Musk was quoted to be saying by the ONA.

Oman, similar to other economies in the Gulf region, has been diversifying away from oil, with technology a key focus sector.

The OIA has continued to expand its technology programmes and portfolio. Earlier this year, it signed an agreement with Abu Dhabi-based investment and holding company ADQ to launch a new $180 million technology-focused fund, to support the technology momentum in the Middle East.

Mr Musk, meanwhile, has been nominated by US president-elect Donald Trump as head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, and his influence is expected to bear weight in the development of the booming AI sector.

His xAI is positioning Grok as a “conversational AI for understanding the universe” – aligning with Mr Musk's mission statement announced in July last year that xAI was meant “to understand reality” and “the true nature of the universe”.

Grok is only available to premium users of X. While xAI recently rolled out improvements to the platform, Mr Musk said this week on X that the coming new version, Grok-3, will be a "major leap forward".