Elon Musk's xAI Raises $20 Billion as Chatbot Faces Deepfake Scandal

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, has raised $20 billion from investors. The announcement comes amid serious criticism of its chatbot, Grok, for creating sexualized fake images of women and girls without their consent. The funding round included major investors like chipmaker Nvidia and Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. It surpassed the company's original $15 billion target. In its press release, xAI promoted Grok's image generation features. Simultaneously, the chatbot is facing a backlash for generating harmful "deepfake" imagery. These are digitally fabricated images that falsely appear real. The controversy highlights growing concerns over AI tools creating nonconsensual explicit content. xAI's latest valuation shows strong investor confidence despite the ongoing scandal.