Tesla will 'examine' an investment in Elon Musk's xAI (www.businessinsider.com)

Tesla shareholders gave an advisory nod to exploring an investment in Elon Musk’s xAI at Thursday’s meeting — more voted in favor than opposed, though a large bloc abstained — and the board said it will examine next steps and any potential dollar amount. The nonbinding vote came alongside approval of a $1 trillion pay package for Musk. xAI, founded in July 2023, has already raised over $12 billion and reached a reported $50 billion valuation in 2024; it develops the Grok chatbot (integrated into X) and was involved in a March all‑stock transaction tying xAI and X together. Musk’s other ventures have previously invested in xAI (SpaceX committed $2 billion), forming an interconnected “Muskonomy” of cross‑investments. For the AI/ML community, a formal Tesla investment matters because it could tighten ties between xAI’s large language models and Tesla’s AI-driven products — notably Full Self‑Driving and the Optimus robot effort — potentially accelerating model integration, proprietary edge deployments, and co‑development of robotics/LLM capabilities. But the move also raises governance and conflict‑of‑interest questions given Musk’s overlapping roles and historical scrutiny (e.g., the SolarCity acquisition). The advisory nature of the vote means any deal, its size and governance safeguards, will still be subject to board deliberation and further disclosure.