Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals
Updated Aug 2, 2026
xAI (now branded SpaceXAI) is Elon Musk’s frontier-AI company, founded in 2023 to advance scientific discovery and “understand the universe.” Its principal product is Grok, a conversational multimodal AI assistant available through consumer apps, X integrations, and an API. SpaceX acquired xAI on 2026-02-02, so its present status is a SpaceX-owned AI subsidiary/division rather than an independent venture-backed company.
Primary product
Grok: a multimodal conversational AI system with reasoning, real-time web/X search, voice, image/video generation, coding, and developer/API access.
Founded
2023
Headquarters
Palo Alto, California, United States (1450 Page Mill Road is the SEC-listed principal business address; current web/company-directory listings also describe a broader Bay Area/New York presence).
Team size
Approximately 1,000–3,000 for xAI; third-party LinkedIn-derived figures vary substantially after the SpaceX integration, so no single count is treated as authoritative.
Work style
Onsite
Industry
Artificial intelligence / technology, information and internet
Sub-industry
Frontier foundation models, generative AI, AI infrastructure, conversational AI and developer APIs
Offices
Business model
Stage
Late-stage private / acquired subsidiary; formerly venture-backed through Series E
Total raised
$37.1B
Latest round
Series E · Jan 2026
Latest amount
$20B
Merger / Acquisition (SpaceX acquisition)
Feb 2026 · Acquired by SpaceX — [xAI joins SpaceX announcement](https://x.ai/news/xai-joins-spacex) / [TechCrunch coverage](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/02/elon-musk-spacex-acquires-xai-data-centers-space-merger)
Jan 2026 · Valor Equity Partners
Secondary transaction (private)
Dec 2025
Equity financing reported alongside asset-backed debt
Jul 2025 · SpaceX
Jan 2025
Dec 2024
May 2024 · Valor Equity Partners
Jan 2024 · (early investors reported in PitchBook) — [PitchBook xAI profile](https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/533035-45)
Jan 2023
Leadership
Elon Musk
Founder and CEO
Michael Nicolls
President (appointed in 2026 after the SpaceX acquisition)
Leader of Grok model and voice initiatives
Manuel Kroiss
Leader of coding models and ML infrastructure
Co-founder; leader of the Imagine/multimedia organization
Toby Pohlen
Co-founder; leader of the Macrohard organization
Co-founder; departed in February 2026
Co-founder and former chief engineer; departed in August 2025
Investors
Public careers materials describe a small, highly motivated, flat and hands-on organization emphasizing curiosity, urgency, technical excellence, direct contribution, strong communication and rapid execution. The company explicitly prioritizes in-person collaboration.
Work style
Onsite
Visa sponsorship
Yes
Compensation
xAI advertises competitive cash plus equity. Public technical-role postings show base-salary ranges such as $180,000–$440,000 and, for some model-training roles, up to approximately $600,000; total compensation can include equity. These are role-specific posted signals, not a company-wide average.
Benefits
Pricing
Freemium consumer access; SuperGrok subscription at about $30/month; API priced by model, input/output tokens and tool calls; enterprise pricing is custom with volume pricing, dedicated infrastructure, SSO/SCIM and support.
Differentiators
Technology
Customers
Competitors
Estimated revenue
Approximately $0.5B–$3.8B annualized, depending on whether estimates include only standalone AI revenue or the post-merger X/Grok ecosystem; no audited public figure was located.
Estimated monthly visits
36M
Traffic estimate as of Jun 2026
SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock transaction reportedly valuing xAI at approximately $250 billion and the combined company at approximately $1.25 trillion. This changes xAI’s governance, funding status and reporting transparency.
SourceFollowing the SpaceX transaction, xAI reorganized into major groups covering Grok/Voice, coding and ML infrastructure, Imagine, and Macrohard; Reuters reported several co-founder departures and management churn.
SourceBusiness Insider reported that xAI laid off at least 500 generalist AI tutors/data-annotation workers as it shifted toward specialist AI tutors.
SourcexAI acquired Hotshot, a generative-video startup; Hotshot began sunsetting its standalone video-creation service shortly beforehand.
SourceGrok faced public safety and reliability criticism around offensive/antisemitic outputs and jailbreaks during the Grok 4 launch period, creating reputational and product-governance risk.
SourceReuters · Feb 2026
The post-merger reorganization followed several co-founder departures and divided the organization into major product and infrastructure groups.
TechCrunch · Feb 2026
TechCrunch reports SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI (announced Feb 2, 2026), outlining plans to integrate xAI into SpaceX and pursue space-based data centers; article covers deal valuation and strategic rationale [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/02/elon-musk-spacex-acquires-xai-data-centers-space-merger).
Reuters · Feb 2026
SpaceX acquired xAI, reportedly valuing xAI at $250 billion and combining Musk’s AI, space and social-media assets.
CNBC / xAI announcement · Jan 2026
CNBC and xAI’s official announcement report an upsized $20 billion Series E (Jan 6, 2026) with strategic participation from NVIDIA and Cisco and a syndicate including Valor Equity Partners and sovereign funds [xAI announcement](https://x.ai/news/series-e) / [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/06/elon-musk-xai-raises-20-billion-from-nvidia-cisco-investors.html).
xAI · Jan 2026
xAI announced an upsized $20 billion Series E backed by major financial and strategic investors, including NVIDIA and Cisco Investments.
265 jobs at xAI