SAN FRANCISCO: Elon Musk has formed an X.AI artificial intelligence corporation based in the US state of Nevada, according to business documents that surfaced on Friday.

Musk, who is already the boss of Twitter and Tesla, was listed as a director of X.AI Corporation founded on March 9, a state business filing indicated.

Musk recently merged Twitter with a newly created “X” shell company, keeping the brand name for the platform but not the business.

Musk’s founding of what appears to be a rival to ChatGPT-maker OpenAI came despite recently calling for an overall pause in developing artificial intelligence.

Musk has bought thousands of powerful, costly computing processors and hired engineering talent as part of an AI project at Twitter, according to an Insider report.

Meanwhile, Musk has slashed staff at Twitter as part of dramatic cost-cutting since his $44 billion takeover of the San Francisco firm late last year.

The founding date of X.AI was several weeks before Musk joined experts in signing an open letter calling for a hiatus in the development of AI.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2023