Former xAI Staffer Eyes $50 Million for Firm to Fight Deepfakes

A former xAI and Google staffer is in talks to raise roughly $50 million in seed funding for a new company focused on combating deepfakes online, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Tina Oberoi is forming a new startup called Moir that aims to develop new technology to help individuals prove their identities online, at a moment when advanced artificial intelligence systems are making it harder to determine if digital content is authentic.

Moir, which will be based out of Palo Alto, California, has begun funding talks with investors at a $250 million valuation, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the details are private.

A Moir spokesperson declined to comment.

Oberoi worked at Google for more than five years, and she later joined xAI’s data team. She’s one of a growing number of former employees who have left Elon Musk’s AI venture to start their own firms.

Earlier this year, xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin announced the launch of River AI, a startup focused on personalized AI, along with a group of former xAI and Tesla Inc. staffers. Eric Zelikman and Yuchen He also helped launch Humans&, an AI lab.

XAI has gone through a chaotic period over the past year, including a global uproar over sexualized images generated by its chatbot and a subsequent merger with Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX.