evidence: Elon Musk Announces New Company xAI as He Seeks to Build ChatGPT Alternative - The startup lists 12 industry experts as first employees - Musk now oversees six companies including Tesla and xAI [...] Elon Musk, who has hinted for months that he wants to build an alternative to the popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot, announced the formation of what he’s calling xAI, a company with a mission to "understand the true nature of the universe." On a website unveiled Wednesday, xAI said its team will be led by Musk and staffed by executives who have worked at a broad range of companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence, including Google’s DeepMind, Microsoft Corp. and Tesla Inc., as well as academic institutions such as the University of Toronto.