Musk bets AGI push will dominate rivals if xAI survives the next 3 years

During a high-energy all-hands in San Francisco, Elon Musk told staff that the success of xAI AGI-related efforts will determine whether the company can overtake entrenched AI rivals.

Musk’s three-year survival window for xAI and AGI timeline

According to several people present at last week’s meeting, Elon Musk told xAI employees that the company must survive the next two to three years to emerge as a dominant force in advanced AI.

He framed this period as an intense survival test, not just for xAI but for every firm racing to build superintelligence.

Musk argued that massive computing power and scalable data storage will be the decisive advantages in that race. In his view, whoever ramps GPU infrastructure fastest will win the contest to build AI systems that surpass human intelligence across tasks. That, he said, is how xAI becomes the most powerful AI company.

He went further and predicted that the company could hit artificial general intelligence in just a few years, potentially as early as 2026. Moreover, he described AGI as the point where AI can think as well as, or better than, humans on a wide range of problems.

People in the room said Musk reiterated that xAI could reach AGI by 2026, underscoring how compressed he believes the timeline has become. However, he also acknowledged that achieving that breakthrough depends on scaling infrastructure and keeping the company well funded through this critical window.

Funding firepower and the Colossus build-out

Musk told staff that xAI expects to have access to about $20 billion to $30 billion in funding each year, giving it a war chest that many competitors lack. He stressed that this financial strength is bolstered by synergies with his other companies, which can share technology, data and deployment channels.

The centerpiece of that strategy is the rapid expansion of xAI’s Colossus data infrastructure. The company is pushing its main data center from around 200,000 GPUs earlier this year to a target of 1 million GPUs. Moreover, Musk framed this as essential to staying in the AGI arms race, where model size and compute capacity are escalating at unprecedented speed.

People who attended the meeting described Musk as upbeat about the trajectory. One attendee told Business Insider that the gathering felt “peppy,” with leadership emphasizing both the risks and the scale of the opportunity if xAI can survive long enough to fully deploy Colossus.

Grok roadmap and Tesla integration

Back in November, Musk publicly said that xAI’s Grok 5 model had roughly a 10% chance of reaching AGI-level capability. At the San Francisco meeting, he reiterated that ambition and said the company aims to release that model early next year.

Staff also heard that xAI is already leveraging its ties to Tesla. The automaker began integrating Grok into its vehicles earlier this year, turning cars into a real-world deployment platform for xAI models. However, Musk noted that deepening that tesla grok integration requires the same compute and data infrastructure being built for Colossus.

During the product update portion of the meeting, leadership showcased improvements to Grok Voice, the dedicated app for Tesla owners, and to xAI’s AI agents. The upgrades highlighted better prediction capabilities, enhanced listening for the voice assistant, and new video editing tools aimed at content creation and analysis.

Space data centers, Optimus and Mars ambitions

The discussion occasionally veered into longer-term ideas that pushed well beyond immediate survival. Musk floated possibilities such as building data centers in space and using them to support future colonies on Mars. That said, he acknowledged that these ideas sit on the speculative frontier of xAI’s roadmap.

He also raised the prospect that Tesla’s Optimus robots could eventually operate those off-world data installations. The notion of optimus space centers fits with his broader vision of combining robotics, AI and space technology across his companies.

Musk reminded staff that he has previously suggested Optimus might assist with SpaceX missions as soon as next year. Moreover, he pointed out that leaders at Google and OpenAI have also spoken publicly about possible space-based data centers, even if Google’s CEO has admitted such projects remain a long shot for now.

When Business Insider asked xAI for comment on the meeting, the company replied with an automated message that read simply: “Legacy Media Lies.” The terse response underscored the group’s confrontational stance toward traditional outlets.

Colossus acceleration and the competitive landscape

Over the past year, xAI has accelerated work on its Colossus data center project, which leadership presented as the backbone of its long-term AI infrastructure. Earlier in the year the facility reportedly housed about 200,000 GPUs, with an aggressive goal of reaching 1 million units as deployments ramp.

Plenty of large technology companies are pursuing AGI, seeking to justify valuations in the hundreds of billions of dollars. However, even with Musk’s global profile, xAI remains a relative newcomer when compared with established players such as OpenAI and Google. That makes infrastructure build-out and sustained funding even more critical.

The broader market is not slowing. Earlier this month, reports indicated that OpenAI went into emergency mode to ship its latest flagship model under intense competitive pressure. Moreover, Google launched a new Gemini model in November, while outlets like Cryptopolitan have noted that xAI has been rolling out new Grok versions in rapid succession.

At the San Francisco meeting, xAI leadership emphasized that this environment demands constant iteration, faster deployment of new models and relentless scaling of compute resources. That said, they also highlighted that the company’s multi-billion-dollar annual funding expectations give it room to take big swings.

Can xAI survive long enough to lead?

Musk told employees that if the company can navigate the next three years, its combination of funding, GPU capacity and product integrations will leave it well positioned in the race for xai agi. He framed this period as both a risk zone and a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

Despite acknowledging that xAI is burning cash at a rapid pace, Musk expressed confidence that its infrastructure push and financial backing will sustain it through this phase. Moreover, he suggested that the expansion of Colossus, the rollout of Grok 5 and growing synergies with Tesla and SpaceX will be the pillars that determine whether xAI emerges as a long-term leader in advanced AI.

In summary, xAI is racing to scale compute, launch new models and leverage Musk’s broader corporate ecosystem while the window to define the future of AGI remains open. The next few years will show whether that ambition, and the billions committed to it, are enough to turn bold projections into reality.