Elon Musk has revealed plans to completely overhaul xAI, the company that oversees the social media platform X and the AI chatbot Grok.
The tech billionaire founded the firm in March 2023 to take on the “woke” AI models from competitors like Google and OpenAI. But three years on, Mr Musk expressed regret over the way xAI has been managed after former staffers described a culture of chaos.
“xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up. Same thing happened with Tesla,” he wrote on X, referring to major personnel and structural changes in the early years of the electric car maker.
Mr Musk added that “many talented people” had applied to join xAI, but had been declined an offer or even an interview.
“My apologies,” he said. “Baris Akis [head of recruitment at xAI] and I are going through the company interview history and reaching back out to promising candidates.”
His post prompted former employees to share their experience of working at xAI, with complaints about the structure of the company and some of the personnel in charge.
AI specialist Benjamin De Kraker described “foundational problems” at the firm during his time there between September 2024 and March 2025, which he claims were hidden from Mr Musk.
“xAI employees would come in full of excitement and enthusiasm, and would have it stomped out by managers who hated ideas,” he wrote in a post to X.
“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.”
Other former employees have been critical of Mr Musk’s management style, with a recent report in The Verge citing concerns about his approach to AI safety and its implementation to Grok.
“There is zero safety whatsoever in the company – not in the image [model], not in the chatbot,” said one former employee, who wished to remain anonymous.
“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.”
