Saudi AI firm Humain invests $3bn in xAI

Korea Economic Daily

Summary

Saudi state-owned AI firm Humain said it invested $3bn in Elon Musk’s xAI, becoming a major shareholder.
Humain’s xAI stake was converted into SpaceX shares, and SpaceX is targeting an IPO as early as June, it said.
The FT said SpaceX could raise up to $50bn through the listing, potentially making it the largest IPO on record.

Secures stake ahead of merger with SpaceX

Humain, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned artificial intelligence (AI) company, has invested $3bn (about 4.35 trillion won) in Elon Musk’s AI venture xAI.

According to the Financial Times (FT) on the 18th (local time), Humain said in a statement that it contributed $3bn of the $20bn raised by xAI in a funding round last month, conducted just ahead of the merger between xAI and Musk’s space company SpaceX. The investment made Humain a major shareholder in xAI, it said, adding that its stake was subsequently converted into SpaceX shares.

With SpaceX targeting an initial public offering (IPO) as early as June, the investment is expected to generate substantial returns for Humain. SpaceX is projected to raise up to $50bn through the listing, which would make it the largest IPO on record.

Backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Humain was founded last year under the initiative of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The FT said, “This investment is part of Saudi Arabia’s strategy to diversify its economy and position itself as a global AI hub.” In November last year, Humain agreed to work with xAI to build a data center in Saudi Arabia with a capacity of more than 500MW and to deploy xAI’s AI chatbot Grok.

Reporter Lim Da-yeon allopen@hankyung.com