#xai

#xai

Elon Musk is reportedly looking to finally take SpaceX public after years of resistance, according to sources who spoke to The Wall Street Journal. The company has long said it wouldn't choose an IPO until it had established a presence on Mars. That isn't happening anytime soon. So why now? Company insiders have suggested it's because Musk wants to build AI data centers in space. Google recently announced it was looking into putting a data center in space, with test launches scheduled for 2027.

Elon Musk is building a recruitment strike force at xAI. The AI startup is hiring a team of "talent engineers" to supercharge its hiring of top engineers as the AI boom fuels a red-hot race for talent. The "small, elite unit" will report directly to Musk and focus on creating "novel approaches" to identify and hire the "absolute best people in the world," according to a job listing posted on xAI's website. Successful applicants need to be comfortable with vibe coding, have a history of building cool products, "even as a kid," and must be a "nerdy engineer" at heart - even though their friends see them as a "people person."

Ashley St Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk's children, has sued his company xAI over sexualised deepfakes of her created on social media platform X. The lawsuit filed in New York on Thursday alleges the Grok AI tool created sexually explicit pictures of St Clair. The parent company of X and Grok, xAI, has counter-sued St Clair for violating its terms of service. X did not respond directly to BBC News's enquiries about the lawsuits.

"xAI appears to be facilitating the large-scale production of deepfake nonconsensual intimate images that are being used to harass women and girls across the internet, including via the social media platform X," California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office said in a statement. The statement cited a report that "more than half of the 20,000 images generated by xAI between Christmas and New Years depicted people in minimal clothing," including some that appeared to be children.

Grok, the xAI chatbot, includes image-generation features that allow users to morph existing photos into new images. The newly created images are then posted publicly on X. In some cases, users have created sexually explicit or nonconsensual images based on real people, including altered depictions that appear to show individuals partially or fully undressed. Others have generated images that appear to show minors, prompting criticism that there are not sufficient guardrails to prohibit the creation of child pornography.

According to documents obtained by Bloomberg, xAI recorded a net loss of $1.46 billion over the third quarter of 2025. That's an even worse loss than previous months - in the first quarter of 2025, for example, the company's net loss was roughly $1 billion, and it's shredded $7.8 billion in cash over the last year, according to documents obtained by the publication.

News of xAI's new turbines was shared on social media platform X, with user @SemiAnalysis_ stating that the turbines were produced by South Korea's Doosan Enerbility. As noted in an Asian Business Daily report, Doosan Enerbility announced last October that it signed a contract to supply two 380 MW gas turbines for a major U.S. tech company. Doosan later noted in December that it secured an order for three more 380 MW gas turbines.

The U.S. Department of War announced Monday an agreement with Elon Musk's xAI to embed the company's frontier artificial intelligence systems, powered by the Grok family of models, into the department's bespoke AI platform GenAI.mil. The partnership aims to provide advanced capabilities to 3 million military and civilian personnel, with initial deployment targeted for early 2026 at Impact Level 5 (IL5) for secure handling of Controlled Unclassified Information.

"The challenge with Elon is keeping up with him," Wiles told the outlet, calling Musk an "avowed ketamine" user who "sleeps in a sleeping bag" in an office building adjacent to the White House during the daytime. "He's an odd, odd duck, as I think geniuses are. You know, it's not helpful, but he is his own person."

A 36-hour work sprint at xAI? Cue the applause from colleagues. Elon Musk's companies have long been known for their intensive work cultures. During Tesla's production ramps, some employees slept in their cars or, in Musk's case, on the factory floor. When Musk took over Twitter, he said to embrace an "extremely hardcore" schedule or be laid off. At xAI, one employee recently said that they worked for a day and a half straight, sparking responses from their colleagues - and Musk himself.