Recently, xAI, the AI company founded by Elon Musk, attempted to recruit an engineer from OpenAI, but was met with a strong rejection. Javier Soto, the OpenAI engineer, shared a screenshot of his reply to xAI on the social media platform X, surprising many netizens.
In his message, Soto clearly stated: "I cannot, in good conscience, work for Elon Musk." While claiming to be a satisfied Tesla owner and admiring SpaceX, he believes Musk's social media pronouncements are "one of the biggest threats to democracy we face." He further pointed out that Musk is deliberately spreading harmful misinformation to manipulate millions for personal gain. Soto emphasized that as long as xAI is associated with such a "dangerous individual," it will face difficulties in attracting and retaining smart and diverse talent.
This incident follows the recent launch of xAI's Grok3 chatbot, which was discovered to be instructed to ignore all sources regarding misinformation spread by Musk and Donald Trump. xAI's chief engineer, Igor Babuschkin, claimed that an unnamed employee unauthorizedly set this rule. Soto expressed his dissatisfaction on X, criticizing Babuschkin for "throwing an employee under the bus" on Twitter, calling it "extremely toxic behavior."
Soto stated: "I think I'll never regret sending that email." It remains unclear who was responsible for setting Grok's rules, whether the employee has been fired, or if Babuschkin is being truthful. However, it's evident that xAI is attempting to recruit talent from OpenAI, and in this instance, xAI's efforts were clearly unsuccessful.
Key Points:
🔍 Javier Soto rejected xAI's recruitment attempt, stating he could not work with Musk.
🛑 Soto criticized Musk's statements as a threat to democracy, believing he spreads misinformation.
📉 xAI is struggling to attract OpenAI talent, particularly in diversity and intelligence.
