Elon Musk's xAI Burns Almost $8 Billion, Reveals Optimus Plan
- by Bloomberg | Latest And Live Business
- Jan 09, 2026
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09 Jan 2026, 10:08 PM IST
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While Musk runs several separate businesses and projects, he frequently intertwines their purposes and resources. Grok, xAIâs chat bot, has been fully integrated into X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, and is also available in Tesla vehicles. SpaceX, Muskâs rocket company, has already invested in xAI, which in turn has spent hundreds of millions on Tesla Megapack batteries.
Musk has talked about the potential benefits of formally linking xAI and Tesla, but the automaker is not currently an xAI investor. Tesla shareholders voted in November on whether the company should invest in xAI â an idea Musk has supported â but the non-binding proposal did not receive enough votes to pass. Teslaâs board is considering next steps, General Counsel Brandon Ehrhart said at the time.
The prospect of xAI powering Teslaâs humanoid robots could be seen as conflicting with past statements that Teslaâs leadership has made in attempts to portray the work the two companies are doing as largely separate and unrelated. âxAI is working on artificial general intelligence, or artificial superintelligence. Tesla is trying to make autonomous cars and autonomous robots,â Musk said in 2024. âTheyâre different problems.â
For now, xAI Holdings, the parent company of both xAI and X, is focused on raising money to keep up with its large expenses. It recently closed a $20 billion equity round from investors, including Nvidia Corp., Valor Equity Partners and the Qatar Investment Authority, which valued the company at $230 billion. That cash will presumably power the company for the next year or more, as it is still spending under $1 billion per month on investments, according to people familiar with the firmâs finances. XAI used almost $8 billion in cash on investments through the first nine months of 2025, financial documents show.
XAI has been raising both equity and debt. The firm has worked with Valor and Apollo Global Management on a special purpose vehicle to buy Nvidia Corp. chips, and it expects to do more deals soon to keep building out its Colossus data center site in Memphis, Tennessee. The firm is already planning an expansion of the Memphis complex, and recently purchased a third building in the area that will bring the companyâs computing capacity to almost 2 gigawatts, Musk said late last year.
The xAI call with investors offered a chance to hear from newly-appointed leadership at the company. Anthony Armstrong, a former Morgan Stanley banker, joined xAI and X as Chief Financial Officer in the fall, while Shulkin, a partner at Valor Equity, also took a new role at xAI late last year, people familiar with the company said. Armstrong and Shulkin did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mike Liberatore, xAIâs prior CFO, resigned from the firm last fall after just three months.
On the investor call, xAI executives were optimistic about the firmâs results, highlighting the revenue growth. Still, it may not meet its annual goal. In June, the firm told investors it hoped for $500 million in revenue for the year. Through September, xAI reported over $200 million in sales. The companyâs gross profit has increased, though, and xAI reported $63 million in gross profit during the third quarter, up from just $14 million in the prior quarter, the documents show.
Despite this, xAIâs losses continue to grow. Ebitda â earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization â were negative. The company reported an ebitda loss of $2.4 billion through September, indicating its earnings have yet to make up for its expenses. Thatâs not uncommon for startups, which often require a lot of cash to grow and take time to turn a profit. Still, xAIâs losses were more than initially expected; the firm previously projected an ebitda loss of $2.2 billion for the full year, Bloomberg previously reported.
XAI has not yet disclosed to investors the end-of-year results, which executives said had been positive.
XAI has raised at least $40 billion in equity to date, including the latest $20 billion round that the firm announced earlier this month. The company paid almost $160 million in stock-based compensation through September, a reflection of the AI talent wars heating up.
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