Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are reportedly going head-to-head again — this time over a buzzy AI startup
Apu Gomes via Getty Images; Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
- Meta and xAI are competing to partner with buzzy AI startup Character.AI, per the Financial Times.
- It's the latest twist in the rivalry between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
- The two billionaires have been feuding for years, and are now both racing to build superhuman AI.
The rivalry between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg may be heating up again.
Musk's xAI is reportedly vying with Meta to partner with Character.AI, an Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup that allows users to create AI-generated characters that act as chatbots, individuals with knowledge of the situation told the Financial Times.
According to the report, both companies have held exploratory talks with Character.AI about working together on initiatives, including pre-training and developing AI models, although no deal has been struck with either.
Character.AI, which allows users to create their own personalized chatbots, was valued at $1 billion last year and is in talks to raise around $200 million from investors including Google.
The race between Meta and xAI to partner with Character.AI marks the latest development in the fierce rivalry between Musk and Zuckerberg.
The two billionaires have been publicly feuding since 2016, when a SpaceX rocket exploded and destroyed a Facebook satellite.
The grudge nearly turned physical in 2023, when Musk challenged jiu-jitsu champion Zuckerberg to a cage match. To date, the fight hasn't happened, but that hasn't stopped Musk from continuing to goad his rival on X.
AI seems like it will be the latest theater for their rivalry. Meta and xAI, which Musk founded last year, are racing to build up their AI infrastructure and fighting each other for talent.
XAI announced it had raised $6 billion in funding on Monday, and is reportedly planning to build a "gigafactory of compute," an enormous supercomputer that will be used to train the latest version of its sarcastic and foul-mouthed Grok chatbot.
Meta, meanwhile, has added AI features to its social media platforms, including Character.AI-style celebrity personas.
Zuckerberg has vowed to spend "aggressively" on AI and said that the company's mission is now to build AGI, a level of AI that will outperform humans.
The two billionaires have clashed over AI before. In 2017, Zuckerberg branded Musk's views on AI as "irresponsible" after Musk questioned whether AI could be a threat to humanity.
"With AI especially, I'm really optimistic, and I think that people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios ... I don't understand it. It's really negative, and in some ways, I actually think it's pretty irresponsible," Zuckerberg said.
Musk fired back that the Meta boss had a "limited" understanding of the subject.
Meta, Elon Musk, and Character.AI did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside normal working hours.
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