Tesla CEO Elon Musk has launched a poll asking users on social media platform X whether the electric car maker should invest US$5-billion in his artificial intelligence start-up xAI — with early votes showing most in favour of the move.

“Board approval & shareholder vote are needed, so this is just to test the waters,” Musk said of the poll which came on the heels of Tesla posting its lowest profit margin in five years on price cuts and increased spending on AI projects.

During Tesla’s earning conference call, Musk said xAI would be “helpful in advancing full self-driving and in building up the new Tesla data centre”, adding that there are opportunities to integrate xAI’s chatbot, Grok, with Tesla’s software.

Nearly eight hours after the poll was posted, roughly 535 000 people had participated with 68.6% voting in favour of the investment.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while xAI could not be reached for comment.

Musk, the world’s richest person, launched xAI last year, hoping to build an alternative to ChatGPT. The start-up raised $6-billion in a series-B funding in May, attaining a post-money valuation of $24-billion. Backers include Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital.

Musk has previously said that he plans for a quarter of xAI to be owned by investors in X, formerly known as Twitter, which he bought for $44-billion although the social media firm’s value has plunged since then.

Diverting resources

On the earnings call, Musk also dismissed concerns that he may be diverting resources from Tesla to some of his other companies.

In June, CNBC reported that he had ordered Nvidia to ship thousands of AI chips destined for Tesla to xAI and X. Musk said Tesla’s data centre was full and there was no place to put the chips.

Musk is a frequent user of the polls feature on X. In 2021, he asked Twitter users about whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stake and commenced selling shares just days after the poll. — Hyunjoo Jin and Shivani Tanna, with Utkarsh Shetti, (c) 2024 Reuters