Musk's xAI company recently shocked the world with a frenzied financing action. It announced the completion of a 9.3 billion dollar financing round, with a valuation skyrocketing to 80 billion dollars, a figure equivalent to 1.5 times OpenAI. However, behind this glamorous data lies a reality filled with controversy and skepticism.
Looking at the flow of financing funds, it is astonishing. Over 100,000 H100 chips have been invested in building supercomputing centers, which consume enormous amounts of electricity, with daily electricity costs reaching 3.8 million dollars, enough to buy 2 luxury apartments in Shanghai; the huge power consumption resembles a 'chip graveyard,' devouring massive funds. To build a team, xAI has initiated a 'headhunter death squad' mode, poaching talent from tech giants like Google, offering annual salaries of 10 million dollars, and even providing programmers with signing bonuses of 100 million; such exorbitant costs are shocking. Even more worrying is their method of data acquisition, frantically scraping private chat records of users on the X platform for training AI models, which is a serious violation of laws and has even received a subpoena from the EU.
In terms of technological achievements, xAI has also faced criticism. Global AI experts have collectively fired shots, with Stanford Professor Fei-Fei Li angrily pointing out that the number of xAI papers is 0, and GitHub code updates have also stopped for 3 months; Jensen Huang sarcastically noted that 9.3 billion dollars is enough for Nvidia to sell 250,000 H100s, while Musk has seemingly invested it in inefficient purposes. The user trial version of the Grok - 2 model has an IQ test score of only 89, yet it boasts of 'beating GPT - 4,' this gap forms a stark contrast with the grandiose claims and makes the 80 billion dollar valuation seem like a house of cards, easily toppled.
The backers of this financing also hide secrets. The Saudi sovereign fund PIF splashed out 3.5 billion dollars, and the brother of the UAE president personally contributed 2.8 billion dollars. Insiders revealed that these Middle Eastern funds came with devilish clauses, requiring xAI to help establish an AI surveillance network, even to suppress domestic protesters; the political intentions and dark transactions behind the capital are gradually coming to light.
When the world's attention is focused on this financing frenzy, Chinese retail investors have become the new targets for exploitation. Various fraudulent methods are emerging: fake xAI website pop-ups saying 'Congratulations, you have obtained internal testing qualifications,' luring retail investors to connect their wallets and instantly stealing virtual currency; a player in Guangdong lost 5.3 million overnight; a 'relative of Musk' initiated collective investment fundraising in a WeChat group, promising a 1:100,000 return, only to abscond with the funds while mocking investors; selling so-called 'xAI supercomputer nodes,' claiming an annualized return of 300%, while in reality, they are just repackaged old graphics cards.
Musk's xAI company's financing spectacle appears to be a carnival of capital, but behind it lies a chasm filled with risks and traps. Whether it is the exaggerated valuation, controversial use of funds, or hidden political transactions and methods targeting retail investors, all serve as a warning bell for global investors, reminding them to maintain rationality and vigilance while chasing hot trends.#马斯克搞事 
