Recently, xAI, an AI company founded by Elon Musk, tried to poach an engineer at OpenAI, but was strongly rejected by the other party. OpenAI engineer Javier Soto shared screenshots of his reply to xAI on social media platform X, which surprised many netizens.
In this message, Soto made it clear: “I can’t work for Elon Musk with conscience.” Although he claims to be a satisfied Tesla owner and full of admiration for SpaceX, he believes Musk’s comments circulating on social media are “one of the greatest threats to democracy we face.” He further pointed out that Musk is deliberately spreading harmful false information to manipulate millions of people and seek personal gain for himself. Soto stressed that as long as xAI is associated with such a "dangerous individual", it will face difficulties in attracting and retaining smart and diverse talents.
The background of this incident is that xAI's recent Grok3 chatbot was found instructed to ignore all sources of false information about Musk and Donald Trump. In response, xAI chief engineer Igor Babuschkin claimed that the problem was caused by an unauthorized employee of the company who had not been named. Soto expressed dissatisfaction with this on X, criticizing Babushkin for "pushing employees to the forefront" on Twitter, calling this practice "extremely toxic behavior."
"I don't think I'll regret sending this email," Soto said. It's unclear who is responsible for setting the rules for Grok, nor whether the employee has been fired, or whether Babushkin is telling the truth. But it can be seen that xAI is trying to poach OpenAI's talents, and in this incident, it is obvious that xAI's efforts have failed to do so.
Key points:
Javier Soto rejected xAI's poaching, saying he could not cooperate with Musk.
Soto criticized Musk's remarks as a threat to democracy, believing that it spreads false information.
xAI attempts to attract OpenAI talent, but faces difficulties, especially in terms of diversity and intelligent talent.