Elon Musk has revealed plans to completely overhaul xAI, the company that oversees the social media platform X and the AI chatbot Grok. Musk expressed regret over the way xAI has been managed after former staffers described a culture of chaos. On X, Musk wrote that xAI was not built right first time around and is being rebuilt from the foundations up, similar to what happened with Tesla.
Musk also issued an apology and launched a recruitment outreach effort. He wrote on X that many talented people had applied to join xAI but were declined an offer or even an interview, and he apologized for this. Musk added that Baris Akis, head of recruitment at xAI, and he are going through the company interview history and reaching back out to promising candidates.
xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up. Same thing happened with Tesla.
Former employees have shared complaints about the structure of xAI and some of the personnel in charge. AI specialist Benjamin De Kraker described foundational problems at xAI during his time there between September 2024 and March 2025, which he claims were hidden from Elon Musk. De Kraker wrote on X that xAI employees would come in full of excitement and enthusiasm, and would have it stomped out by managers who hated ideas. He also wrote that xAI was filled with middle managers and busybodies, and it was one of the most DEI and corporate-y places he had ever worked.
Other former employees have been critical of Elon Musk's management style, with a recent report in The Verge citing concerns about his approach to AI safety and its implementation to Grok. A former anonymous xAI employee said there is zero safety whatsoever in the company – not in the image model, not in the chatbot. The same source said Elon Musk is actively trying to make the model more unhinged because safety means censorship, in a sense, to him, and you survive by shutting up and doing what Elon wants.
My apologies. Baris Akis [head of recruitment at xAI] and I are going through the company interview history and reaching back out to promising candidates.
Separately, social media platform X is pausing the rollout of a new policy for paying creators, which would have taken effect starting this Thursday. The new rules would have placed more emphasis on engagement from local audiences in a creator's region or country to determine the revenue a creator generates. According to X's head of product Nikita Bier's announcement on X on Tuesday, the proposed change was intended to discourage creators from posting about the United States or Japan – countries with the largest number of users on the platform – and effectively gaming the system to attract more attention to their posts. Bier noted the large amounts of content about US politics generated by users based outside of the US.
The proposed change triggered backlash from creators globally, with some pointing out that they posted about a range of topics beyond politics and that the presence of users from their country was fairly small. Elon Musk replied to a user on X hours after the announcement, writing that they will pause moving forward with this until further consideration.
We will pause moving forward with this until further consideration.
These developments occur within a broader context. Elon Musk founded xAI in March 2023 to take on the 'woke' AI models from competitors like Google and OpenAI. The proposed rule change on X came amidst a wider move by the social platform to provide more information about accounts to avoid the spread of misinformation.