Elon Musk says xAI will use Twitter data and work with Tesla

By Sheila Dang and Krystal Hu

(Reuters) -Elon Musk on Friday said his new artificial intelligence company, xAI, will use public tweets from Twitter to train its AI models and work with Tesla (NASDAQ:) on AI software.

The billionaire, who owns Twitter and runs Tesla, said during a Twitter Spaces audio chat that a relationship between his companies would have “mutual benefit” and could accelerate Tesla’s work in self-driving capabilities.

Musk has criticized other AI companies accusing them of developing the technology without considering risks to humans.

On Friday, Musk said xAI’s goals were to increase “understanding of the universe” and to provide an alternative to Microsoft (NASDAQ:), Google (NASDAQ:) and OpenAI in achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), which refers to AI that can solve problems like a human.

He also accused all AI companies of training their models using Twitter data in what he characterized as an illegal manner.

Musk, who has advocated for regulations in AI, said he has pushed for meetings with White House officials and has emphasized the importance of regulating AI in his recent meetings with top government officials in China.