(NEWSnet/AP) — Elon Musk is finally starting to talk about the artificial intelligence company he founded to compete with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

The startup, xAI, formally launched July 12. Its goal is to “understand the true nature of the universe.” It hasn’t said much more than that.

Led by Musk,  the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who also owns Twitter, the new startup in the San Francisco Bay Area has hired a group of top AI researchers who formerly worked at OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Tesla.

It will be independent from Twitter’s new parent company, X Corp., but will work closely with that company, as well as Tesla, according to a statement.

Musk was a co-founder and early funder of OpenAI who parted ways with theresearch lab several years ago. He has grown increasingly critical of OpenAI as it gained global prominence and commercial success with the 2022 release of ChatGPT and solidified its financial ties to Microsoft.

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