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Musk denies $10B fundraising at xAI after CNBC report

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Elon Musk pushed back on Friday against a CNBC report that his AI startup xAI was raising $10 billion at a post-money valuation of $200 billion. “Fake news. xAI is not raising any capital right now,” Musk wrote on X, dismissing claims the firm was in talks with investors.

CNBC had reported that the funds would be used to build massive data centers with Nvidia and AMD GPUs and recruit top AI talent as xAI ramps up to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. The company operates the Colossus supercomputer cluster in Memphis, Tennessee, which Musk has described as the world’s largest.

Investor interest in AI firms remains strong despite questions over the sustainability of big tech spending. If true, the $200B valuation would have more than doubled xAI’s reported $75B valuation in July and placed it among the world’s most valuable private companies—behind OpenAI, ByteDance, and SpaceX, but ahead of Anthropic, which recently raised funds at a $183B valuation.

Musk’s denial comes amid conflicting signals. In June, Morgan Stanley reported that xAI had already raised $5B in debt financing alongside a $5B strategic equity investment to expand its infrastructure. While Musk insists no new round is underway, xAI continues to scale aggressively, seeking to establish itself as a rival to OpenAI, which may soon be valued at $500B in a planned stock sale.

Nvidia eyes $500 million investment in UK self-driving startup Wayve

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Nvidia has signed a letter of intent to invest $500 million in Wayve, a London-based autonomous driving technology company, during its next funding round, Wayve confirmed Thursday. The move underscores Nvidia’s growing push into self-driving and follows a broader U.S.-UK technology pact to deepen cooperation in artificial intelligence.

Founded in 2017, Wayve has developed a machine-learning approach to autonomous driving that differs from conventional systems. Instead of relying heavily on pre-mapped roads, its AI learns directly from traffic patterns and human driver behavior using vehicles equipped with camera sensors.

Wayve raised over $1 billion in 2023, led by SoftBank with backing from Nvidia, while Uber invested separately in 2024. Its autonomous driving platforms already use Nvidia chips, linking its growth to the broader global AI hardware surge.

The company operates in both the UK and U.S., while expanding testing into markets such as Germany and Japan. Nvidia’s latest move comes alongside a pledge to invest £2 billion ($2.7 billion) in Britain’s AI startup ecosystem, a signal of its commitment to both mobility technology and the UK’s broader AI ambitions.

Nvidia takes $5B stake in Intel, forging alliance on future AI chips

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Nvidia announced a $5 billion investment in Intel, acquiring roughly 4% of the struggling chipmaker and pledging to jointly develop new chips for PCs and data centers. The deal comes just weeks after the U.S. government took an extraordinary 10% stake in Intel to shore up the company amid mounting concerns about its competitiveness.

Intel shares surged 23% on the news, while Nvidia’s stock rose nearly 4%. Nvidia will pay $23.28 per share, slightly below Intel’s prior closing price but above what Washington paid earlier this month. The investment makes Nvidia one of Intel’s largest shareholders and marks a pivotal moment in the U.S. effort to counterbalance Asia’s dominance in chip production.

Under the pact, Intel will supply central processors and advanced packaging for joint products that combine Intel CPUs with Nvidia GPUs, linked by Nvidia’s high-speed proprietary technology. The companies pledged to build “multiple generations” of such products, though Nvidia stopped short of committing to use Intel’s foundries for its own chips—a key issue for Intel’s turnaround.

The partnership could reshape the competitive landscape. Analysts say it poses the most immediate risk to AMD, which competes with Intel in supplying data center CPUs, and a longer-term threat to TSMC, which currently manufactures Nvidia’s flagship processors. Broadcom, whose chip-to-chip interconnect technology underpins many AI systems, may also feel pressure.

“This is a massive game-changer for Intel and effectively resets its position of AI-laggard into a cog in future AI infrastructure,” said Gadjo Sevilla, senior analyst at eMarketer. Some analysts even speculate the deal could be the first step toward an eventual breakup or acquisition of Intel by U.S. chipmakers.

Intel’s new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has vowed to streamline operations and build capacity more cautiously, only when demand is clear. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emphasized the administration was not directly involved in the partnership but noted Washington would welcome the collaboration.

For Intel, the deal adds to a growing cash reserve after a $2 billion investment from SoftBank and $5.7 billion from the U.S. government. For Nvidia, the alliance gives it a foothold in Intel’s deep enterprise and government networks, while cementing its dominance in AI infrastructure.