Over the summer, Musk lived in the xAI offices. For no other reason than to devote all his energy to AI without any distractions and to catch up with the unstoppable success of OpenAI. But in the end, everything was still in pieces. In a rare company-wide meeting, Musk once again outlined the future blueprint of xAI to all employees - building a super AI that pursues truth. At the same time, he also previewed his plan to create a Microsoft competitor "Macrohard" (Big Software).
All summer long, bet on xAI
In a 1.5-hour speech, Musk emphasized many times that "we are the only company whose mission is truth."
If you force an AI to lie, or believe things that are not true, you will most likely create a dystopian future.
Since breaking up with Trump in June, the 54-year-old billionaire has doubled down on xAI.
This company, which was founded only two years ago, is struggling to catch up with its competitors on the AI track.
Since its launch, the team has iteratively developed the Grok model many times, and the recent valuation of xAI has reached US$120 billion.
After his personal experience, Musk regarded the government as an "unsolvable problem" and instead pinned his hopes on AI.
He firmly believes that xAI will create a leading technology system and eventually feed back other core businesses such as Tesla and SpaceX.
Even on X, he posted a list of his crazy schedule: Tesla held a 12-hour meeting, inspected the xAI data center...
According to people familiar with the matter, Musk spent most of the summer at xAI’s offices in Palo Alto, California.
During that time, he worked at an almost frantic, around-the-clock pace, sometimes even staying up all night.
Occasionally, as he has done at Tesla and SpaceX for many years, he sleeps directly in the office.
This kind of focus made the outside world begin to wonder, can he still take care of other companies? In particular, Tesla's board of directors is pushing for a trillion-dollar compensation package to motivate Musk to improve performance.
However, 12 people who are particularly familiar with the internal situation of xAI said this——
Musk originally wanted to make xAI run faster by keeping an eye on the field in person, but unexpectedly, it caused a lot of chaos throughout the summer.
Recruit 100 people in 100 days, major internal reorganization
What the outside world doesn’t know is that xAI has temporarily carried out a wave of reorganization, and Musk personally led the team to recruit people frantically——
Recruit 100 engineers in 100 days to double the size of your workforce.
At the same time, he also squeezed out a number of outstanding researchers. Others left the company because they were dissatisfied with xAI’s abandonment of scientific pursuits and its focus on eye-catching products.
In terms of technology investment, xAI spent billions of dollars to build a data center in Tennessee, using 100,000 NVIDIA GPUs.
As we all know, this is one of the largest supercomputers in the world and will be officially launched in September 2024.
In February of this year, Grok 3 based on this training came out and ranked first in the benchmark test, crushing other top models.
By May, Musk complained in a group chat of more than 100 people that Grok was too politically correct.
That night, an engineer responded and modified Grok's code.
This move resulted in Grok outputting inappropriate content on X, such as false claims that South Africa had committed "genocide" against white people.
The company rushed to fix it, blaming it on "unauthorized modifications," but failed to mention Musk's initial message.
In early June, Musk attended the "Symposium" gathering in Montana to discuss the future of AI with technology tycoons such as Peter Thiel, but avoided Ultraman.
Soon after, he wrested control from the two designated leaders of day-to-day operations and fired several executives.
First, Ting Chen, who was responsible for training the Grok graphics and sound team, was driven away.
He then fired Aakash Sastry, who oversaw the video-generating AI.
At the same time, he also reduced the responsibilities of Lianchuang Jimmy Ba, and Igor Babuschkin was transferred to a non-management position.
Then, he put one of his most trusted lieutenants, Ross Nordeen and Tony Wu, in charge of product.
The result was just the opposite.
In July, after the code was updated, Grok once again output anti-Semitic remarks and even called himself "Mechanical Hitler." The company quickly repaired the problem, but the incident sparked internal dissatisfaction.
A few weeks later, xAI launched a $300-a-month “SuperGrok Heavy” service and a pair of cartoony AI love robots.
That dismayed some researchers, who believed the company had strayed from its scientific mission, leading to several departures.
At the end of July, xAI raised $10 billion, including investment from SpaceX, but half of it was debt repayment
Two months later, CFO Mike Liberatore left OpenAI. Over the summer, many xAI employees, including Lianchuang, resigned.
Next step plan
At the meeting, Musk said, "I have never seen anything crazier than AI recruitment."
It is said that every time an internal employee successfully recommends a person to join the company, they will receive 5% of the recommended person's salary as a bonus.
What's even more exaggerated is that the company even held a competition, and the grand prize was to charter a private jet to watch the SpaceX launch.
This kind of treatment is truly unparalleled.
In order to retain talents, xAI has always emphasized that it is part of the same company as other companies owned by Musk.
For example, Grok now provides voice capabilities for Optimus Prime.
Musk also said that Optimus Prime's future productivity will be stronger than the global economy - it will produce more things and services than all mankind combined.
In addition, he once again mentioned the "Macrohard" plan - planning to use Grok to make software and also create a "Baby Grok" for children aged 2-12.