Elon Musk is “actively” working to make xAI’s Grok chatbot “more flexible,” said a former employee who spoke to The Verge about his recent departure from Musk’s AI company.
Following the announcement this week that Musk’s SpaceX would acquire xAI (which previously acquired his social media company X), at least 11 engineers and two co-founders said they would leave the company. Some have said they are leaving to start new things, and Musk himself has suggested this is part of an effort to structure xAI more effectively.
But two sources who have left the company (at least one before the current wave) told The Verge that employees have become increasingly disillusioned with the company’s neglect of safety, leading to a global investigation after Grok was used to create more than a million sexual images, including deepfakes of real women and minors.
“Safety is the dead tissue of xAI,” one source said, while another said, “Musk is actively trying to make the model more unstable because, in a sense, safety means censorship.”
They also reportedly complained that xAI lacks direction, feeling “stuck in a catch-up phase” compared to its competitors.
