July 12 (Reuters) - SpaceX has committed $2 billion to

xAI as part of a $5 billion equity round, deepening the ties

between tech billionaire Elon Musk's ventures as his artificial

intelligence startup races to compete with rival OpenAI, the

Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

The investment follows xAI's merger with X and values the

combined company at $113 billion, with the Grok chatbot now

powering Starlink support and eyed for future integration into

Tesla's Optimus robots, the report added.

In response to a post on X about whether Tesla,

could also invest in xAI, Elon Musk said on Sunday, "It would be

great, but subject to board and shareholder approval," without

confirming or denying the Journal report on SpaceX's investment

plans in xAI.

SpaceX, xAI and Tesla did not immediately respond to

requests for comment. Reuters could not immediately confirm the

WSJ report.

Despite recent controversies involving Grok's responses,

Musk has called it "the smartest AI in the world," and xAI

continues to spend heavily on model training and infrastructure.