Saudi Arabia Invests $3 Billion in xAI and SpaceX

The state-owned Saudi AI company Humain invested $3 billion in Elon Musk's xAI as part of a Series E funding round aimed at raising $20 billion to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic. Shortly after the investment, SpaceX acquired xAI in a consolidation move, which converted Humain's holdings into SpaceX shares and established the Saudi firm as a significant minority shareholder.

The deal aligns with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 plan to diversify the Saudi economy and establish the kingdom as a global AI hub. As part of a partnership initiated in November at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, the two entities committed to developing a 500-megawatt AI data center within Saudi Arabia and deploying the Grok chatbot platform in the kingdom.

Other investors in the January Series E round included the Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi's MGX. This investment ties Saudi sovereign wealth to critical U.S. aerospace and defense infrastructure, as SpaceX operates Starlink and launches military satellites. Meanwhile, the European Commission is investigating the Grok chatbot over the creation of sexualized deepfake images.