Musk brings in SpaceX team to overhaul xAI, stresses 'respect candidates'

xAI CEO Elon Musk has brought in a "fixer" from Tesla and SpaceX to audit and overhaul the company, admitting it "was not built right the first time around."

As part of the rebuild process, Musk is also revisiting the company's previous hiring records.

In a follow-up post on Friday, March 13, he said he and Baris Akis are reviewing rejected applications to reach out to promising candidates, adding, "Sorry, candidates should always be treated with great respect."

In earlier posts on X (formerly Twitter), Musk admits that xAI is facing structural issues, writing, "xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up."

The decision has come just over a month after SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-equity deal valuing the AI company at $250 billion.

It also follows several xAI co-founders making their exit, who include Zihang Dai and Guodong Zhang.

The exit of these co-founders left Musk down to only two co-founders from the original 2023 team.

SpaceX CEO Musk has recently brought in a “fixer” from Tesla and SpaceX to audit xAI, per the Financial Times.

The outlet further added that the two remaining co-founders, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen, along with Musk, face a significant challenge ahead.

For context, as per LinkedIn, xAI has just over 5,000 employees, in comparison to over 7,500 at OpenAI and more than 4,700 at Anthropic.

Experts believe this talent gap is at a decisive moment as SpaceX is gearing up for a record-breaking IPO this year.