Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya has amplified an observation about Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk's efficiency in building cutting-edge AI, despite spending far less than rivals like Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META).
What Happened: Following the launch of Grok 4, Musk's most advanced large language model developed by his AI startup xAI, Artificial Analysis ranked the model as the most intelligent among leading competitors, surpassing OpenAI's GPT-4, Anthropic's Claude 4 and Alphabet Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google Gemini 2.5 Pro in several key benchmarks.
In response to this achievement, Palihapitiya posted on X, "Elon doing Elon things… Grok 4 is now the leading AI model in the world. I think people may not realize how impressive this feat is… they started from scratch just a few years ago."
A user replied to his post, saying, "Seriously, how does this guy produce what he produces? Meta is buying talent at $200M/year and Elon keeps his people at a fraction. Mind blowing." Palihapitiya agreed, replying: "This is a critically important point."
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Why It's Important: Meta's Superintelligence Labs (MSL), launched in June 2025, has aggressively poached top talent from OpenAI, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google DeepMind with multimillion-dollar offers as part of its pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI).
In contrast, Musk's xAI—founded in 2023—has built a world-class model reportedly with a leaner team and lower compensation.
Musk’s xAI is also seeking to raise $5 billion as it ramps up API access and deployment across X, Tesla and potentially Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Azure.
xAI's valuation has jumped to $113 billion after its March acquisition of X. The company has also wrapped up a $300 million share sale and is still seeking up to $20 billion in equity funding, with potential valuations climbing as high as $200 billion.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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