Saudi Arabia Just Pumped $3 Billion Into Elon Musk’s xAI

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, has secured a $3 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN; a state-backed AI fund launched under the country’s Vision 2030 initiative. The deal, confirmed today, February 18, 2026, makes HUMAIN one of the largest external backers of xAI to date.

This is not just a business transaction. It is a geopolitical statement. Saudi Arabia is aggressively positioning itself as a major player in the global AI race and backing Musk’s operation which runs the Grok chatbot absolutely gives the kingdom a seat at the table as the technology rewires the global economy.

For xAI, the timing is significant. Grok has grown from a 1.6% market share in January 2025 to 15.2% by January 2026, one of the fastest rises any AI platform has recorded. The new capital gives xAI the runway to scale infrastructure, hire top-tier engineers and go head-to-head with OpenAI and Google in a way that was not possible twelve months ago.

Whether Musk can translate money and momentum into a durable, trusted product is still the open question but $3 billion buys a lot of time to answer it.