Saudi Arabia has committed a multibillion-dollar investment toward Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence ambitions, with Humain, the kingdom’s state-backed AI company, pouring $3 billion into Musk’s startup xAI.
The deal deepens financial ties between Riyadh and the tech billionaire. It also places Saudi capital inside one of the most closely watched AI ventures in the United States.
Humain said the investment was part of xAI’s $20 billion fundraising round completed in January. Shortly after that raise, Musk merged xAI with his rocket company SpaceX, creating a combined entity valued at more than $1 trillion. Humain described itself as a significant minority shareholder, with its stake later converted into SpaceX shares.
Humain was launched last year by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and is backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund. The company leads the kingdom’s effort to diversify beyond oil through artificial intelligence and advanced computing. It is developing large-scale data centers, expanding computing capacity and investing in global AI startups.
The partnership between Humain and xAI began in November, when both sides unveiled plans to build more than 500 megawatts of new data center capacity in Saudi Arabia.
The facility will deploy Nvidia chips and roll out xAI’s Grok models across the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has also secured U.S. approval to purchase advanced semiconductors, reversing earlier export restrictions.
Across the Gulf, sovereign-backed firms are increasing investments in American AI companies. Regional funds have supported xAI, OpenAI and Anthropic, while infrastructure partnerships with Nvidia, AMD and Cisco continue to expand computing capacity.
The $3 billion investment highlights how state-backed capital from the Middle East is becoming a major funding source in the global AI expansion.
