Elon Musk’s xAI Announces Layoffs of 500 Employees, Shifts Focus Towards Specialist AI Tutors

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, made a significant personnel change this Friday night, as reported by internal communications obtained by Business Insider. The emails announced an immediate strategic pivot, with the company deciding to expedite the growth and prioritization of specialist AI tutors while scaling back the focus on general AI tutor roles.

According to these sources, the company plans to eliminate most generalist AI tutor positions, stating that, “As part of this shift in focus, we no longer require most generalist AI tutor roles and your employment with xAI will conclude.”

Approximately one-third of xAI’s 1,500-strong data annotation team, responsible for labeling and preparing data utilized to train the company’s chatbot Grok, are reportedly affected by these cuts.

When contacted for confirmation, xAI referred to a statement on X (the social network owned by Musk that xAI acquired earlier this year), which declared the company’s intention to expand its Specialist AI tutor team by tenfold.

“We are hiring across various domains such as STEM, finance, medicine, safety, and numerous others,” the company stated.