Can You Invest in xAI Pre-IPO? What to Know and Alternatives to Consider

Is xAI publicly traded?

xAI wasn't a publicly traded company as of early 2025. The AI start-up was a private company owned by Musk, his fellow X investors, and several institutional investors. Notable xAI investors, besides Musk, include Fidelity Management & Research, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, Kingdom Holding, Lighspeed, BlackRock (BLK +0.65%), Nvidia (NVDA -1.81%), and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD +1.54%).

When Will xAI IPO?

xAI didn't have an IPO on the calendar as of late 2025. The company completed its latest funding round towards the end of 2024, raising a staggering $6 billion.

That valued the more than one-year-old AI start-up at a stunning $50 billion. It put xAI right behind Anthropic's $60 billion valuation, although it was a distant third to OpenAI's $300 billion value. Given its early stage of development and the ease at which it can raise private capital, xAI likely won't go public anytime soon.

Is xAI profitable?

The privately held xAI doesn't need to publicly disclose its financial information to investors, so there isn't much publicly available information about its revenue and profitability.

However, given that the company had only been operating for a little more than a year by early 2025, it likely wasn't profitable and was a long way from making money. The AI start-up was only generating about $100 million in annual revenue.

Meanwhile, the company is investing heavily in buying chips from Nvidia to train AI models and hiring to grow its team. These heavy investments likely mean the company is losing a lot of money.

While xAI is presumably losing money, the company raised another $6 billion in cash from investors in late 2024 to help fund its investments. That gives it lots of money to fund product development, build infrastructure, and accelerate its research and development activities. However, it will eventually need to start making money to become a sustainable business and justify its lofty valuation.

Alternatives to xAI stock

Since xAI is a private company, you can't buy shares in a brokerage account. However, accredited investors (i.e., those with a high net worth or high income) can sometimes buy shares of pre-IPO companies on secondary marketplaces, like Forge Global (FRGE +0.16%) and Hiive.

A different path to consider is investing in a publicly traded company focused on AI. Three top AI stocks are:

Nvidia

Nvidia is a leading semiconductor company. It has developed many of the chips AI companies are using to power their models.

The company is an investor in xAI, having participated in its $6 billion funding round in late 2024. That funding round gave the AI startup the cash to buy 100,000 Nvidia chips to build a new supercomputer in Memphis. The growing purchases of Nvidia's AI chips are driving robust revenue and earnings growth for the semiconductor company.

Meta Platforms

Meta Platforms (META +2.26%) is spending aggressively on AI. It's building several AI services, including its AI assistant, Meta AI and plans to build AI products, scale them, and then monetize them, which has been a successful playbook in the past. The company believes it has the talent, data, and ability to scale infrastructure to build the world's leading AI models and services.

Tesla

Musk's car company, Tesla (TSLA +0.84%), is investing heavily in AI. The company plans to spend $5 billion on AI initiatives in 2024 and 2025, including buying chips from Nvidia. Tesla focuses on using AI to advance the development of full self-driving software and robotics. Musk would like to grow Tesla into a leader in AI and robotics.

ETFs with exposure to xAI

Because xAI isn't a publicly traded company yet, you can't passively invest in its stock through an exchange-traded fund (ETF). However, you can use ETFs to invest in the AI megatrend. Here are three top AI ETFs to consider investing in to capitalize on the AI boom driving xAI's growth potential:

• iShares Exponential Technologies ETF (XT +0.94%): The BlackRock-managed ETF allows you to invest broadly in companies with significant exposure to disruptive technologies, like AI. The ETF held shares of almost 200 companies in early 2025, led by Blackberry (BB +0.25%) at 1% of its net assets, and had a 0.46% ETF expense ratio.
• Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF (AIQ +0.95%): This fund invests in companies poised to capitalize on the growing development and usage of AI. In early 2025, it had around 85 holdings, including Meta Platforms (its second-largest holding, at 3.3%). The ETF had a 0.68% expense ratio.
• First Trust Nasdaq Artificial Intelligence and Robotics ETF (ROBT +0.69%): This ETF strives to track the performance of companies engaged in AI, robotics, and automation. In early 2025, it had more than 100 holdings, led by Palantir Technologies (PLTR +1.61%) at 3.7% of its net assets. It also had a 0.65% expense ratio.

Should you invest in xAI?

Most investors can't buy shares of xAI directly yet. That gives you plenty of time to decide whether investing in the AI company will be right for you whenever it eventually does go public. With that in mind, here are some reasons you might want to invest in xAI's future IPO:

• You believe in xAI's mission of building AI to accelerate human scientific discovery.
• You think Grok is a better chatbot than rivals like ChatGPT, Claude, and Meta AI.
• You're a big fan of Musk and want to invest in companies he's backing.
• You believe xAI can develop, scale, and monetize commercially successful AI products.

On the other hand, here are some reasons you might decide that xAI isn't right for you:

• You're not really a fan of Musk.
• You're concerned that xAI is learning based on data generated by X users.
• You think the company's valuation is difficult to justify.
• You prefer other AI chatbots to Grok.

The bottom line

xAI has burst onto the scene over the past year to become the second-most valuable AI start-up. The Musk-led AI company has a bold vision and lots of funding to execute its mission, so it appears to have a bright future.

Although most people can't invest in the stock yet, there are many ways to gain exposure to the company and the trends driving AI investment. Those investments could pay off if AI lives up to all the hype.

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