In early 2024, two of the biggest Silicon Valley companies — Elon Musk’s xAI and Meta — fought to partner with a Generative AI company. Meta and Elon Musk’s xAI competed for tie-up with chatbot-maker Character.ai, as deep-pocketed technology companies swarmed around the hottest artificial intelligence startups in Silicon Valley. Two years later, the same hotshot AI company, Character.ai, has filed for bankruptcy.
Under this process, Disney’s bid would set a baseline offer while allowing competing bidders to submit higher bids, and the company expects the sale process to conclude by late November or early December 2026. In May 2024, Meta and Elon Musk’s xAI sought partnership with chatbot-maker Character.ai, according to a report in Financial Times.
“After a comprehensive review of the available alternatives, the board determined that this court-supervised sale process provides the company with the best opportunity to maximize value for all stakeholders,” said Colin Adams, CEO of Character.AI. Facebook owner Meta reportedly held early discussions over a tie-up with Character.ai, which uses large language models to generate conversation in the style of various figures and personas, according to four people familiar with the matter. The groups discussed their top researchers working closely together on initiatives such as pre-training and developing models, said the report quoting sources.