One of Elon Musk's newer companies is eyeing an $18 billion valuation

Fast Facts

The Wall Street Journal reported that investors close to Elon Musk are in talks to organize a new fundraising round for his AI startup.
The round would value xAI at $18 billion.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that investors close to Elon Musk are in talks to help xAI raise $3 billion as part of a new fundraising round that would value the artificial intelligence startup at $18 billion.

Gigafund, a venture capital firm, is reportedly considering investing in the round. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This latest funding report comes a few months after a December filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in which xAI reported that it is looking to raise $1 billion and has already raised $135 million from four investors.

Musk has denied previous reports that xAI is raising funds, saying in January that one report was "simply not accurate."

In response to a January FT report that xAI was looking to raise $6 billion at a $20 billion valuation, Musk said: "xAI is not raising capital and I have had no conversations with anyone in this regard."

It isn't clear if these recent reports are connected to the fundraising detailed in the December SEC filing.

The AI bubble

This latest funding report is representative of an industry that is seemingly spending as much time looking for cash as it is looking for high-quality data.

Last year, venture capitalists invested $50 billion (out of the total $285 billion invested in global startups) in AI startups, according to Crunchbase data. This comes as corporate investments and partnerships have steadily become more popular; Microsoft has invested more than $10 billion in OpenAI. The company has also invested millions in Mistral and Inflection. Google has pledged to invest up to $2 billion in Anthropic and Amazon has pledged to invest up to $4 billion.