Elon Musk names ex-Morgan Stanley banker CFO of xAI, FT reports

(Bloomberg/Edwin Chan) — Elon Musk named a former Morgan Stanley executive the chief financial officer of xAI, the Financial Times reported, appointing an ally to help oversee one of the largest US artificial intelligence startups.

Anthony Armstrong will helm finance at both xAI and the social media service X, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The executive, who helped Musk complete the $44 billion acquisition of the former Twitter, will take up responsibility for nursing the social media platform back to financial health, the FT reported.

Musk’s xAI raised funds at a $200 billion valuation just last month, making it one of the world’s most valuable startups. The billionaire has sought capital as he tries to keep pace in a heated race that’s seen companies like OpenAI, Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. spend tens of billions on data centers.

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Musk, too, has spent aggressively in those areas. Bloomberg News reported earlier this year that xAI is losing $1 billion per month because of high infrastructure costs. Meanwhile, his social network X posted a sales decline during the second quarter from the first, suggesting it’s struggled to build on the spending that rushed in when Musk was at the center of US politics.

Armstrong was one of Musk’s lieutenants during the billionaire’s stint at President Donald Trump’s signature cost-cutting effort, the Department of Government Efficiency. Trump created the White House unit of experts from computer engineering and finance in January as Musk sought to find $2 trillion in savings. But after shuttering agencies and canceling contracts early in Trump’s second term, the effort sputtered.

The ex-banker is joining Musk’s empire at a time of management tumult.

Armstrong’s predecessor, xAI CFO Mike Liberatore, left the company just months into the job. Linda Yaccarino stepped down as chief executive officer of X less than three months after the social-media arm got absorbed by xAI.

Armstrong was formally named xAI’s CFO in recent days after working with the company for weeks, the FT said. His X account now carries an xAI logo, suggesting he’s an employee.

(Updates with details on Armstrong’s from the fifth paragraph.)

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