The company behind Grok is spending billions in an attempt to challenge OpenAI and its ChatGPT for leadership in the race to develop artificial general intelligence. Last week Musk unveiled the fourth generation of his Grok chatbot, which is currently rolling out to Tesla vehicles, just a day after setting a date for the carmaker’s long-delayed annual meeting. 

“If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago,” Musk posted Sunday evening. “We will have a shareholder vote on the matter.”

The next opportunity would be in November, when Tesla is finally scheduled to hold its annual meeting. While Tesla did not respond to a Fortune request for further comment, speculation around Tesla investing in xAI does not come as a surprise. 

SpaceX reportedly invests $2 billion into xAI

For starters, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that Musk’s privately-owned SpaceX company poured $2 billion into xAI despite limited business rationale (Musk tacitly confirmed the story). According to its sources, Grok is only used in some customer support features for SpaceX’s satellite broadband service Starlink.

Moreover, as Musk indicated, he has been eyeing a Tesla investment in xAI for some time. Roughly four weeks after Tesla’s previous annual general meeting in June 2024, Musk ran a social media poll to this effect. 

Should Tesla invest $5B into @xAI, assuming the valuation is set by several credible outside investors?

(Board approval & shareholder vote are needed, so this is just to test the waters)— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 24, 2024

In it, he asked X users — only a small portion of whom were likely Tesla investors — whether the car company should invest $5 billion “assuming the valuation is set by several credible outside investors”. When two thirds of the nearly one million responses were in favor, Musk promised to discuss the issue with the board. 

Since then, however, there has been few new developments.  

xAI raises $5 billion in fresh capital—through a debt sale

That could be because using money that belongs to Tesla shareholders for the purchase of a stake in Musk’s xAI is not so simple from a governance perspective. Even with a clear use case like the integration of Grok into Tesla EVs, there is a conflict of interest.

For example, an investment would indirectly expose investors to X, acquired by xAI last year in an all-stock deal that valued the company formerly known as Twitter at $33 billion in equity and debt. With X repeatedly on the brink of bankruptcy, the transaction had the markings of a bailout, since Twitter was valued at $11 billion less than when Musk bought it. 

According to Bloomberg, catching up to rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic in the AGI race also has not come cheap for xAI. The startup founded two years ago is expected to burn through about $13 billion in cash this year. Musk appeared to dismiss the report when it was published last month, claiming “Bloomberg is talking nonsense”, though he did not specify what precisely was incorrect.

Update on where has @grok been & what happened on July 8th.

First off, we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced.

Our intent for @grok is to provide helpful and truthful responses to users. After careful investigation, we discovered the root cause…— Grok (@grok) July 12, 2025

Just two weeks later, xAI raised $10 billion in fresh capital with the help of Morgan Stanley (SpaceX’s investment reportedly was part of it). Rather unusual for a high-growth tech startup, half of that came from the debt market where investors attach clear strings to the loan in terms of repaying the balance plus interest.

Grok’s antisemitic rants prompts apology for ‘horrific behavior’

Nor has everything with Grok gone smoothly. Musk’s AI chatbot went off the rails last week, spreading numerous antisemitic conspiracy theories on X while proudly declaring itself a mechanized version of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Just one day after the latest reputational scandal engulfed her ad-dependent platform, X CEO Linda Yaccarino resigned from her post. On Saturday, xAI was forced to ask for forgiveness. 

“We deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced,” the official Grok account on X posted this weekend.

The last time Tesla invested in another company that counted Musk as its largest shareholder was the widely criticized 2016 deal to purchase SolarCity for $2.6 billion. Investors challenged the deal as a bailout, with Musk eventually prevailing two years ago in a case that went all the way to the Delaware state supreme court.

Nonetheless, AI is a very different shareholder value proposition than solar roofing, and a number of investors have argued in favor of buying an equity stake.

“We believe Tesla making a big investment in xAI is a key step forward,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote on Monday.

EMPIRE is expanding again.

The independent label, distributor, and publisher, which celebrates 15 years in the music industry in 2025, has officially launched in the Nordic region, led by Iman Hazheer, as Territory Manager.

According to EMPIRE, in this newly established role, Hazheer will lead strategic initiatives for the company across Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland, driving artist relations, market development, and regional partnerships.

Based in Stockholm, Hazheer will work closely with EMPIRE’s international team to amplify the company’s footprint in what EMPIRE calls “one of Europe’s most vibrant and innovative music markets”.

“The further expansion across Europe into the Nordic region further cements EMPIRE as champions of bringing music and culture to a global audience,” EMPIRE’s Founder and CEO, Ghazi, told MBW.

“The further expansion across Europe into the Nordic region further cements EMPIRE as champions of bringing music and culture to a global audience.”

Ghazi

Added Ghazi: “Iman’s knowledge of the music business makes him the best fit to spearhead these efforts and we are happy to welcome him to the team.”

Hazheer arrives at EMPIRE with a decade of experience at the intersection of music, culture, and brand strategy. He spent nearly seven years at Spotify, where he led editorial strategy for the Nordics as a Senior Editor, curating playlists and “shaping the regional music narrative”.

Prior to that, he worked with artists across Northern Europe as part of the Entertainment division at Nike, in Amsterdam.

He began his career as a music and culture journalist at Sveriges Radio, covering emerging trends and, as EMPIRE notes, “elevating voices across Sweden’s creative landscape”.

“The Nordic region has long been a global force in music, but the path to international recognition is becoming increasingly narrow especially for independent and emerging artists.”

Iman Hazheer

“The Nordic region has long been a global force in music, but the path to international recognition is becoming increasingly narrow, especially for independent and emerging artists,” said Hazheer.

“Throughout my career, I’ve seen firsthand the challenges talented creators face when trying to scale beyond their home markets. That’s why I’m excited to join EMPIRE, a company that not only understands the nuances of local culture but also offers a truly artist-first model.

“We’re here to challenge the status quo, champion artists on their own terms and give the Nordic talent pool the platform they deserve, globally.”

“Iman’s industry knowledge, cultural fluency, and strategic approach make him the ideal leader to expand our presence and deepen our impact in the region.”

Guillermo Ramos

Guillermo Ramos, EMPIRE’s Managing Director of Europe, added: “It is with great enthusiasm that we welcome Iman to EMPIRE as our Territory Manager, Nordics.

“The Nordics are home to a rich ecosystem of musical talent and forward-thinking creators. Iman’s industry knowledge, cultural fluency, and strategic approach make him the ideal leader to expand our presence and deepen our impact in the region.”

Founded by Ghazi in 2010, EMPIRE has worked with artists including Kendrick Lamar, Fireboy DML, Shaboozey, Asake, and Anderson Paak.

In addition to its prominent positioning in the North American market, the San Francisco-headquartered company’s global presence extends to the African continent, Europe, Asia, and South America.

In April, EMPIRE expanded in Asia with a multi-year partnership with Cambodian music company Baramey Production.

EMPIRE’s partnership with Baramey Production marked its latest strategic move in Asia after appointing respected executive Jeffrey Yoo as Senior Vice President, East Asia, in October. At that time, EMPIRE also made its first signing in Asia, Korean superstar G-Dragon.

The company launched EMPIRE Africa in 2022, following the launch of a division the previous year to focus on West Asia, North Africa, and its diaspora.Music Business Worldwide

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The scale is staggering: one UN estimate pegs global losses from these schemes at $37 billion. And it could soon get worse.

The rise of cybercrime in the region is already having an effect on politics and policy. Thailand has reported a drop in Chinese visitors this year, after a Chinese actor was kidnapped and forced to work in a Myanmar-based scam compound; Bangkok is now struggling to convince tourists it’s safe to come. And Singapore just passed an anti-scam law that allows law enforcement to freeze the bank accounts of scam victims. 

But why has Asia become infamous for cybercrime? Ben Goodman, Okta’s general manager for Asia-Pacific notes that the region offers some unique dynamics that make cybercrime scams easier to pull off. For example, the region is a “mobile-first market”: Popular mobile messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Line and WeChat help facilitate a direct connection between the scammer and the victim.

AI is also helping scammers overcome Asia’s linguistic diversity. Goodman notes that machine translations, while a “phenomenal use case for AI,” also make it “easier for people to be baited into clicking the wrong links or approving something.”

Nation-states are also getting involved. Goodman also points to allegations that North Korea is using fake employees at major tech companies to gather intelligence and get much needed cash into the isolated country. 

A new risk: ‘Shadow’ AI

Goodman is worried about a new risk about AI in the workplace: “shadow” AI, or employees using private accounts to access AI models without company oversight. “That could be someone preparing a presentation for a business review, going into ChatGPT on their own personal account, and generating an image,” he explains.

This can lead to employees unknowingly uploading confidential information onto a public AI platform, creating “potentially a lot of risk in terms of information leakage.”

Agentic AI could also blur the boundaries between personal and professional identities: for example, something tied to your personal email as opposed to your corporate one. “As a corporate user, my company gives me an application to use, and they want to govern how I use it,” he explains. 

But “I never use my personal profile for a corporate service, and I never use my corporate profile for personal service,” he adds. “The ability to delineate who you are, whether it’s at work and using work services or in life and using your own personal services, is how we think about customer identity versus corporate identity.”

And for Goodman, this is where things get complicated. AI agents are empowered to make decisions on a user’s behalf–which means it’s important to define whether a user is acting in a personal or a corporate capacity. 

“If your human identity is ever stolen, the blast radius in terms of what can be done quickly to steal money from you or damage your reputation is much greater,” Goodman warns.