Elon Musk's AI startup xAI is negotiating a $3 billion funding round, potentially reaching an $18 billion valuation.

Venture capital firm Gigafund and Steve Jurvetson, who have previously invested in Musk's Tesla and SpaceX, are among the prospective financiers.

xAI is contending with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic in the race for dominance in the AI sector.

The industry is experiencing a scarcity of top-tier AI engineers, as highlighted by Musk's comment on a Tesla engineer's move to OpenAI.

The competition for AI talent is fierce, with aggressive recruitment and high salaries as tech's demand for AI expertise surges.