Elon Musk has revealed plans to completely overhaul his artificial intelligence company xAI, saying it was not built correctly from the start and is being rebuilt from the foundations up. In a social media post, Musk wrote: 'xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up. Same thing happened with Tesla.' He also acknowledged that many talented people had applied to join xAI but were declined an offer or interview, adding: 'My apologies. Baris Akis and I are going through the company interview history and reaching back out to promising candidates.'
Former employees have described a culture of chaos at xAI. Benjamin De Kraker, an AI specialist who worked at xAI from September 2024 to March 2025, said on social media that 'xAI employees would come in full of excitement and enthusiasm, and would have it stomped out by managers who hated ideas.' He added: 'They filled xAI with middle managers and busybodies. It was one of the most DEI and corporate-y places I've ever worked. I came in wanting Elon and xAI to win and just left sad.' An anonymous former employee described a lack of safety culture, saying there is 'zero safety whatsoever in the company – not in the image [model], not in the chatbot.' The same source said Musk is 'actively trying to make the model more unhinged because safety means censorship, in a sense, to him,' and that employees 'survive by shutting up and doing what Elon wants.'
xAI employees would come in full of excitement and enthusiasm, and would have it stomped out by managers who hated ideas.
Separately, Business Insider reported that xAI held discussions with French AI company Mistral about a partnership. The tie-up would have included American code-editing startup Cursor. SpaceX, another Musk company, announced a deal with Cursor giving SpaceX the option to buy the company for $60 billion. It remains unclear whether the partnership talks between xAI and Mistral will lead to a deal.
Musk has also been building a supercomputer called Colossus in Memphis, Tennessee, which he said was constructed in three months in 2024. According to Musk, Colossus is the most powerful AI computing cluster in the world with 200,000 GPUs, and he has said it plans to expand to 1 million GPUs. The timeline for that expansion has not been specified.
They filled xAI with middle managers and busybodies. It was one of the most DEI and corporate-y places I’ve ever worked. I came in wanting Elon and xAI to win and just left sad.
On the social media platform X, Musk announced that the company is pausing the rollout of a new policy for paying creators. The new rules would have placed more emphasis on engagement from local audiences to determine revenue, according to Nikita Bier. The proposed change triggered backlash from creators globally, Euronews reported. Musk said: 'We will pause moving forward with this until further consideration.' It is not yet known how the policy will be revised.
There is zero safety whatsoever in the company – not in the image [model], not in the chatbot.
He [Musk] is actively trying to make the model more unhinged because safety means censorship, in a sense, to him. You survive by shutting up and doing what Elon wants.