Musk Boosts the AI Race

In a move signaling the intensifying competition in the field of artificial intelligence, Elon Musk’s company xAI announced its acquisition of the AI startup Hotshot, which specializes in AI-driven video generation tools. This marks Musk’s clear intention to enter the race for this technology in full force, competing with major companies like OpenAI and Google.

Hotshot’s CEO, Akash Sastry, confirmed the news through a post on the X platform, mentioning that his small team had developed three core video generation models over the past two years and is now eager to expand their work with the support of xAI’s massive resources, including its supercomputer Colossus.

Founded in San Francisco by Sastry and John Mullan, Hotshot initially focused on developing AI tools for images before pivoting to the field of text-to-video conversion.

The company secured funding from prominent investors such as Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, and the SV Angel fund, though the exact amount of the investments was not disclosed.

This deal seems to be paving the way for the launch of video models within Musk’s “Grok” project, as he had previously stated that the release of “Grok Video” is expected in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Hotshot announced it had halted the production of new videos since March 14, allowing its users to download the content they created until the end of the same month. The future of its employees remains unclear, and it is uncertain whether they will all transition to working within xAI or if some will face layoffs.