Elon Musk praised XAI as the anti-OpenAI at a recruiting event

On a warm night in San Francisco earlier this week, Elon Musk stood on a small round coffee table bathed in purple light. Crowds of AI engineers and researchers gathered around him, some sitting on a nearby staircase, as the billionaire suggested they join his fledgling AI company xAI.

At the event, a recruiting party for potential employees, Musk’s main selling point was speed – he praised the company’s speed in developing products and developing AI tools in a fast and flexible environment, comparing xAI to an SR-71 jet . “No SR-71 Blackbird has ever been shot down and it had only one strategy: to accelerate,” Musk said, according to one attendee.

The location was fitting: The Pioneer Building in the city’s Mission District, a 122-year-old former truck factory and most recently home to OpenAI, ChatGPT’s juggernaut maker led by co-founder Sam Altman. xAI had just moved into the building, Musk said, attendees said Forbes.

Musk is not afraid to deal with OpenAI. He co-founded the company with Altman and others in 2015 before leaving three years later after an alleged internal power struggle. Since then, Musk has sued the company twice, accusing it of abandoning its mission to develop artificial intelligence to benefit humanity. (He filed his last lawsuit in August after withdrawing a similar lawsuit in June.)

“He really wants to be the counterpart to OpenAI,” said one of the participants, Marvin von Hagen Forbes when asked about the key takeaways from the evening. “They really want to move on and say, ‘Okay, we’re the good guys now.'”

At the event, Musk spoke to about 150 people, mostly men, and answered questions from attendees for about an hour and a half. During the talk, Musk said he didn’t trust OpenAI, calling it “closed-loop, maximum-profit AI,” one attendee said.

xAI did not respond to a request for comment.

Musk’s comments – as well as the location of the office – highlight the upcoming role OpenAI plays for xAI. Musk hosted the event on the same day as OpenAI’s annual Dev Day, which some believe was more than a coincidence. At the event, Musk joked about the development of “BasedGPT.” xAI cleared out OpenAI’s furniture from the office the day before the event, but at least one remnant remains: A printed photo clipping of OpenAI President Greg Brockman hangs on the ceiling of one of the rooms, two attendees said. (Brockman is currently on leave from OpenAI until the end of the year.) Von Hagen estimated that about 10 current OpenAI employees were in attendance. The Verge previously reported some details of the open house.

“He really wants to be the counterpart to OpenAI. They really want to move on and say, ‘Okay, we’re the good guys now.'”

The gap between xAI and OpenAI is huge. Altman has become the face of generative AI and ChatGPT is a household name. Meanwhile, xAI, which launched last July, is best known for its Grok AI model, a paid subscription feature on X, the social platform that Musk owns. Earlier this week, OpenAI closed a $6.6 billion funding round at a $157 billion valuation, the largest venture capital funding round ever. But Musk hasn’t slowed down when it comes to raising money. In May, xAI announced a $6 billion Series B from backers including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Valor Equity Partners, with a valuation of $24 billion.

During the extensive question-and-answer session, Musk touched on several topics. He said xAI will open source its models about nine months after release. When asked what he recommends to young people in AI, he went into pitch mode and said they should work at xAI, just like Musk’s 18-year-old son, who just started at the company. When he traveled to Mars with his other company, SpaceX, he reiterated that the schedule would be “2028 in the best case, 2030 in the realistic case,” one participant recalled. When asked about a succession plan if he retires, he said he is more focused on building artificial general intelligence.

The company also had set up a station where attendees could demonstrate an unannounced imaging model that xAI had developed itself, attendees said. At one point, it showed an AI-generated image of a man in a strawberry costume, according to photos viewed by Forbes.

The event had a party atmosphere with a nerdy twist. The first floor of the office was darkly lit like a club, participants said, with an open bar, hord’oeuvres and a DJ playing music programmed in real time. Chess boards were set up and some participants challenged each other to games. Security was tight. Attendees passed through metal detectors and had their bags checked before entering, while multiple security guards roamed the building.

Still, attendees were surprised at how close they were able to get to Musk, who is said to be the richest person in the world Forbes 400 list was released earlier this week. “I was about three feet away from him,” said Andrew Gao, a Stanford student known on X for his posts about AI Forbes. “I couldn’t have touched him, but we could have high fived.”

The day after the event, von Hagen posted on X about the differences between OpenAI’s Dev Day and xAI’s Open Day. He said the OpenAI meeting felt more like an Apple event, while the xAI meeting was less sophisticated.

Musk responded to his post: “OpenAI certainly didn’t get off to a great start.”