Tesla shareholders may approve $5 billion investment in Elon Musk's new startup, xAI, if they agree.

• Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, polled on social network X whether his company should invest $5 billion in his new startup, xAI.
• In July 2023, xAI was formed and publicly discussed, with a focus on developing large language models and AI products that compete with those from Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
• Musk's companies have a history of working with and paying one another.

Elon Musk, CEO of a publicly traded automaker, asked for input on whether to invest $5 billion in his new startup, xAI, through an informal poll on social network X.

He inquired about the possibility of Tesla investing $5B in @xAI, based on the valuation being established by reputable external investors. However, it is important to note that board approval and a shareholder vote are necessary before any decision can be made. This inquiry is simply to gauge interest and gather information.

The CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, X Corp., and xAI shared a poll following Tesla's second-quarter earnings call on Tuesday evening.

Tesla's second-quarter earnings missed analysts' expectations for the fourth straight quarter, while revenue in its core automotive business decreased. Despite this, the company's energy storage sales surged, and it highlighted its upcoming robotaxis and humanoid robots in development to investors.

Tesla's shares dropped over 7% after the company released its second-quarter report.

Musk's companies often collaborate and compensate one another, but not in the billions of dollars. For instance, as CNBC previously reported, SpaceX advertised its Starlink satellite internet services on X (formerly Twitter), and The Boring Company constructed tunnels at Tesla's Texas factory.

On the Tuesday earnings call, shareholders queried Musk about the possibility of Tesla investing in xAI and integrating Grok, its software, into its vehicles.

Tesla has benefited from xAI's learning, which has aided in advancing Full Self-Driving and constructing the new Tesla data center. However, before investing in xAI, shareholder approval is necessary. Nevertheless, I am in favor of such investment if it is approved by shareholders.

The poll after the call was when the $5 billion number emerged.

He did not provide details on how Grok was advancing the company's driving technology.

In July 2023, Musk publicly discussed xAI, a company that was formed in March last year and aims to compete with AI software products and large language models from companies such as Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta.

AI chatbots can be utilized for generating story ideas, transcripts, action items from meeting notes, coding, and translating ideas from English to another language.

Grok, XAI's initial product, is not as advanced as today's leading chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard, Microsoft's Bing, and Anthropic's Claude. Musk has marketed Grok as a politically incorrect and humorous alternative to these existing options.

Tesla and Musk did not provide additional details on Tuesday regarding why the CEO decided not to develop xAI at Tesla initially.

According to a May 27 blog post, xAI secured a $6 billion series B round of funding and achieved a post-money valuation of $24 billion.