• Elon Musk said that his AI venture, xAI, is working to simulate software companies like Microsoft.
• He's said on X that it's a "purely AI software company called Macrohard."
• Musk said it should be possible since companies like Microsoft don't make physical hardware.

Elon Musk announced he wants to "simulate" software companies like Microsoft using only artificial intelligence. He's even got a name for the new venture: Macrohard.

Musk said in a Friday X post that his AI startup, xAI, is building a "purely AI software company called Macrohard."

"It's a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is very real!" he said. "In principle, given that software companies like Microsoft do not themselves manufacture any physical hardware, it should be possible to simulate them entirely with AI."

Musk didn't provide more details, and a spokesperson for xAI did not return a request for comment. A spokesperson for Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment.

Brent Mayo, an engineer working for xAI, retweeted Musk's post.

Grok, Musk's AI, responded to comments on X and said that AI could theoretically replicate Microsoft's "entire operations" from coding to management, adding that the company is now hiring.

Documents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office also show that a mark for "macrohard" was filed on August 1 by xAI.

Doug Rettew, a trademark attorney who is listed in the application, did not return a request for comment.

The application lists a broad range of AI-focused goods and services for Macrohard, including "downloadable computer software for the artificial production of human speech and text" and "downloadable computer software for designing, coding, running, and playing video games using artificial intelligence."

Macrohard would be added to Musk's long lineup of ventures, which he either partially owns or operates. At the moment, Musk is simultaneously in charge of Tesla, xAI, X Corp, The Boring Company, SpaceX, and Neuralink.

The creation of Macrohard also comes as Musk pushes further into AI and robotics, including encouraging Tesla to invest in xAI. In a 2024 earnings call, Musk said that those thinking of Tesla merely as an auto company are holding "the wrong framework," and called Tesla an "AI robotics company."

Musk has also been placing increasing emphasis on projects like robotaxis and humanoid robots.

• Kimbal Musk supports Elon Musk's pay package and plan to invest in xAI.
• Musk's pay and Tesla's investment in xAI are key issues ahead of Tesla's shareholder meeting.
• Some investors are skeptical of Musk's interim pay package and of Tesla's pivot into robotics.

Kimbal Musk weighed in on his brother's Tesla pay package and Tesla's potential investment in xAI.

"I think my brother deserves to be paid," the younger Musk said Friday on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "He has zero pay for the past six to eight years. I don't think that's right. I'll let Tesla shareholders make that decision, but I believe that it does need to be. He needs to be paid."

"Tesla can't go without a deep, deep understanding of AI. We have a great business relationship with xAI," Kimbal Musk, who sits on the Tesla board, added. "I will again let the shareholders decide that, but we are Tesla, an AI company. As any advanced technology company — Nova, Tesla, others — AI is built into everything you do."

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The question of Elon Musk's pay and whether Tesla should invest in xAI, which is Musk's AI company, are both contentious issues ahead of the company's November shareholder meeting.

Musk doesn't receive a salary or cash bonuses at Tesla. Instead, he receives stock-based performance awards tied to milestones the EV maker achieves.

A Delaware judge struck down Musk's $56 billion pay package in January 2024, ruling that Tesla's board had failed to properly justify what would be the highest pay a public company CEO has ever received in the US. Even though the shareholder upheld his pay package, the judge upheld her ruling again in December 2024.

Tesla has been appealing the ruling since, and the legal limbo has left Musk without compensation until earlier in August, when Tesla's board granted Musk an interim package worth roughly $29 billion in stock, equal to about 96 million shares.

The move was to incentivize Musk to focus on the company, and he can only claim the new award if he remains in a top executive role for another two years. The company would be voting on a long-term pay plan for Musk in the November shareholder meeting, according to an August 4 shareholder letter.

Musk also made clear his desire for Tesla to continue to invest in xAI, in a tweet in July that said Tesla would have invested in his AI company "long ago" if it were entirely up to him. The issue will also be put to a shareholder vote in November, according to Musk's post on X.

Not every shareholder is in agreement with the board and Musk's plan.

The SOC Investment Group, which represents union pension funds, urged Nasdaq on Wednesday to investigate whether Tesla violated listing rules by not securing shareholder approval for the interim pay package.

Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, who manages between $60 and $70 million worth of Tesla shares, previously told Business Insider that he is skeptical of Tesla's pivot away from its core EV business into robotics and cab services.

• Tesla posted a new video on Chinese social media showing off the Model Y L, a longer wheelbase variant of the popular vehicle.
• The six-seat extended SUV will cost $47,200 in China, but Tesla didn't say if it plans a US launch.
• The Model Y is the most popular midsize SUV in China, though sales have been relatively flat amid stiff competition.

A new Tesla variant has arrived — just not in the US.

On Monday, Tesla posted a video of the upcoming Model Y L to its account on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. Translated from Chinese, the post said that the vehicle was "coming soon."

Hours after the video was posted, Tesla announced on Weibo that the Model Y L would be priced from 339,000 yuan ($47,200). The company is now taking orders for the extended SUV on its Chinese website, with deliveries estimated for September.

The video shows three rows of seats, the back two of which fold forward.

The middle row of the vehicle features two stand-alone "captain chairs," which also appear to have new powered armrests that rise up. While the captain chairs in the Model X only tilt forward, these chairs appear to fold all the way down for more storage space.

The video also shows a black headliner, the material on the vehicle's ceiling, and a new logo stamped on the back, with two small accents added to the traditional Model Y badge.

News of Tesla's plans for a six-seat rendition of its Model Y first broke in 2024, when sources told Reuters that the vehicle would launch the following year in China. In July, Tesla registered plans for the Model Y L with a wheelbase of 3,040 mm, according to a filing viewed by the news outlet. The filing also indicated that the Model Y L would be almost 200 mm longer than the Model Y.

The Model Y is the most popular SUV in China. China is Tesla's second-largest market, though the company's sales have been sagging in the region amid fierce competition from BYD, Xiaomi, and Xpeng. Tesla sold 129,000 vehicles in China in the second quarter of 2025, down nearly 12% year-over-year.

BYD sold 1.76 million battery electric cars in 2024. Tesla sold 1.79 million cars that same year, edging out its Chinese competitor.

The Chinese smartphone and electric vehicle company Xiaomi recently launched its own SUV, underpricing Tesla. Chinese EV startup Xpeng also released a Model Y competitor below the Model Y sticker price.

It is not yet clear whether Tesla plans to launch the Model Y L in the United States.

• Legalist, a government receivables startup, saw a boost as DOGE slashed contracts.
• The lender provides gap financing for vendors awaiting payouts from the federal government.
• As contractor payments hang in limbo, Legalist's loans are a temporary solution.

From the moment he became de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk seemed intent on carving up the federal bureaucracy like a Thanksgiving turkey. Thousands of federal employees were laid off, entire departments folded, and contracts worth billions of dollars were scrapped.

That mayhem created a lucrative opening for one startup.

In the first half of this year, Legalist, a San Francisco lender founded by one of tech billionaire Peter Thiel's fellows, extended more than $100 million to dozens of government contractors scrambling for cash. Founder Eva Shang says that's about twice what it deployed in the three years since launching its government business.

The company has doubled its origination team to meet demand, Shang said, and closed $40 million from new investors in June to expand the strategy.

Legalist is best known as a litigation funder. It uses algorithms to scan court dockets, backs cases it thinks are likely to win, and takes a cut of any settlement.

In 2022, at the urging of an investor tied to a university endowment, it branched into "government receivables," providing upfront cash to contractors for goods or services they've already delivered but haven't yet been paid for. Legalist takes its cut when the government eventually settles up.

That sideline became a profit center under the Trump administration, as contract terminations, stop-work orders, and spending freezes choked off cash for contractors.

DOGE says it's canceled about $58 billion in contracts, while a recent Politico analysis said that number was inflated by "accounting tricks" and claims that couldn't be verified. The White House defended DOGE's math, but Politico said it could identify $1.4 billion in money that was actually clawed back from contractors through July.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Federal rules let contractors recover money when policy shifts derail their work — either by adjusting the contract if the pause drove up costs, or by settling up if the job is canceled.

But in the meantime, those contractors have bills to pay, creating a billion-dollar opportunity for private credit lenders like Legalist and its largely regional competitors. (Shang says the company targets an interest rate of at least 12%, above the cost of capital at traditional banks.)

Legalist now has over 50 borrowers. One is a privately held international developer that incurred nearly $200 million in debt for services already rendered after Trump's sweeping freeze on foreign aid payments. Another is a manufacturer of aerospace engine parts that contracts with both the Department of Defense and private-sector clients.

In March, the Pentagon moved to slash over $580 million in programs, grants, and contracts.

Where Musk's cost-cutting frenzy whipped the contracting world into a maelstrom, Legalist has ridden the wave to new heights. Call it a DOGE bump.

Earlier this year, a group of foreign aid groups sued the Trump administration for refusing to spend billions of dollars that Congress had budgeted for federal grants and other programs. Federal judges then ruled to block parts of the funding freeze from taking effect.

An appeals court has now allowed the freeze on foreign aid payments to stand, not because the withholding is lawful, but because the plaintiffs did not have the legal standing to sue. (The decision doesn't alter federal rules letting contractors recover their costs, says Brian Rice, general counsel of Legalist.)

Shang says the ruling is unlikely to affect Legalist's pipeline. That's because the lawsuit pertains to federal grants and other programs, not the contracts that Legalist funds against.

"Some of the grants that Trump canceled, he's well within his right to cancel," she said.

The decision does, however, seep uncertainty into Legalist's world — a dynamic that could keep up demand for its advances, even as it makes collecting on them murkier.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at @meliarussell.01. Use a personal email address and a non-work device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Elon Musk's X post alleges without evidence that Apple rigged the App Store against non-ChatGPT AI apps.
• A "Community Note" on Musk's post points out that DeepSeek went No. 1 in January — months after Apple's OpenAI deal.
• Perplexity was the No. 1 app on Apple's App Store in India in July.

Elon Musk says Apple has made it "impossible" for AI apps that aren't ChatGPT to hit No. 1 on the App Store. The problem with that argument is that DeepSeek did exactly that earlier this year — and Musk's Grok app may have as well.

XAI's Grok app currently sits at #5 on the Apple App Store's top free apps chart — four spots away from the long-dominant ChatGPT.

On Monday, Musk blamed Apple, suggesting without evidence that Apple has its thumb on the App Store scales. Apple partnered with OpenAI last year to integrate ChatGPT into iOS.

"Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation," Musk wrote on X. "XAI will take immediate legal action."

Readers have since added context to Musk's post in the form of a "community note," pointing out that another AI app topped the App Store this year.

DeepSeek released its flagship R1 model on January 20. By January 26, the Chinese AI app reached No. 1 on the App Store, dethroning ChatGPT at the time.

On July 17, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas posted a screenshot of the App Store in India to his X feed, showing Perplexity ranked No. 1 nationally, beating out ChatGPT.

According to Sensor Tower, Musk's Grok app may have hit No. 1 a few months ago. When xAI made Grok-3 free on February 19, the market intelligence firm's data indicates that the AI app topped the free app chart the following two days.

Screenshots from X users at the time show Grok in the No. 1 slot. A Polymarket bet from February asking, "Will Grok be #1 Free app on Friday?" has since been resolved "Yes."

Both DeepSeek and Perplexity's chart-topping stints occurred months after OpenAI announced its partnership with Apple in June 2024.

XAI, Apple, Perplexity, and DeepSeek did not respond to requests for comment.

While other AI apps have taken over the top spot in the App Store for short periods, ChatGPT has had a long-standing hot streak and is massively popular. In a 28-day period between May and June, Similarweb found that ChatGPT was downloaded 29,551,174 times. That compares to 32,859,208 combined downloads for TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X.

Even with its dominance, ChatGPT wasn't the most downloaded app of 2024. It was Temu.

While Musk clearly wants to get Grok to No. 1 on the App Store — reposting a fan's request that people rate the app 5 stars to "put Grok where it belongs, at the very top" — one of his other apps has hit No. 1 on a different Apple chart.

X, formerly Twitter, was the top free News app on Tuesday afternoon, with Reddit at the No. 2 spot.

Update, August 12, 2025 — Added Sensor Tower data indicating that the Grok app hit No. 1 in February.

• Tesla is offering up to $33.66 an hour base pay to robotaxi test drivers in NYC, job listings show.
• Drivers need to be "tech-savvy" and familiar with autonomous driving.
• The move comes as the robotaxi competition heats up, though Tesla hasn't applied for permits in NYC.

New York City streets: honking cabs, zig-zagging delivery bikes, pedestrians with little respect for traffic lights, and, perhaps soon, Tesla robotaxi testers.

As Tesla lays the groundwork to expand its robotaxi service to more US cities, recent job listings indicate that it's hiring autonomous vehicle operators in the Big Apple to help it do so.

Tesla is hiring prototype vehicle operators in Queens, New York, to operate engineering cars with "autonomous driving systems" and collect driving data, according to a job listing on the company's website titled "Vehicle Operator, Autopilot."

The gig pays up to $33.66 an hour, but not all drivers will be paid the same amount, according to the posting.

A Test Operator I can make between $25.25 and $27.60 an hour base pay, while a Test Operator II drivers earn between $28.75 and $30.60 an hour base (minimum wage for large employers in New York City is $16.50). Anyone working an afternoon or night shift makes 10% more than the base pay, which would bring the hourly pay up to $33.66 at the highest pay range, and all are eligible for Tesla benefits.

Applicants should be able to work a "flexible schedule," the posting says, including availability on one weekend day. The gig is either Tuesday through Saturday or Sunday through Thursday, with two different day, afternoon, and night shifts available.

It's not just driving a car — those who get the gig will need to operate recording devices, debug software as needed, collect and analyze audio and camera data, and give detailed feedback. The ideal applicant has to have good English communication skills, be "tech-savvy with experience managing tools for data collection and troubleshooting with advanced PC skills," and be familiar with autonomous driving systems.

Tesla is also hiring test drivers in other cities, with job postings listed in Texas, Florida, and California. The electric vehicles news outlet InsideEVs previously reported that Tesla was also hiring drivers in Brooklyn. The listings in Florida and Texas don't include pay details, but New York law requires businesses with four or more employees to include salary ranges in any job postings. Drivers in Palo Alto, California, can make the same amount as those in Queens, according to Tesla's jobs board.

A spokesperson for New York City's Department of Transportation confirmed to BI that Tesla hasn't applied for a permit to test autonomous vehicles on the city's streets, as CNBC earlier reported. The city rolled out safety requirements for autonomous vehicles last year, and a press release called New York "the country's most challenging urban environment."

Tesla is currently operating a limited group of robotaxis in Austin, Texas, with safety employees in the passenger seat. In San Francisco, Tesla has begun offering its ride-hailing service with safety employees in the driver's seat ready to take over if needed.

During Tesla's earnings call in July, Musk said that the company is working to launch autonomous ride-hailing in "most of the country" eventually, and predicted that the service would likely be available in "probably half of the population of the US by the end of the year," depending on regulatory approvals. Representatives for Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Tesla's job listings often shed insight on the company's direction and product road map.

Last year, Tesla offered people up to $48 per hour to help train its Optimus humanoid robot. Public registration data also reveals that Tesla has ramped up its efforts to test autonomous vehicles in California over the last year.

Business Insider's Grace Kay previously reported that test drivers for Tesla's self-driving cars sometimes navigated dicey situations on open streets and were encouraged to push the technology to its limit.

Earlier this month, a Florida jury found Tesla partly liable for a crash in 2019 that killed a 22-year-old woman, and a group of company shareholders recently sued the company and CEO Elon Musk over its robotaxi service, alleging its robotaxis violate traffic laws.

Tesla's job listings are the latest indicator that the robotaxi wars are heating up, as Lyft joins the fray in Europe and Alphabet-owned Waymo leads the market in the US. In June, Waymo applied for a permit to test robotaxis in New York City.

Are you a robotaxi test driver or do you have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at alicetecotzky.05. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Elon Musk threatened to sue Apple for "antitrust violations" over ChatGPT's top spot in the App Store.
• Sam Altman hit back, citing allegations that Musk manipulated X to "benefit himself and his own companies."
• Days earlier, Altman told CNBC he doesn't think about Musk "that much".

Sam Altman says he doesn't think about Elon Musk that much. That didn't stop the OpenAI CEO from getting into another war of words with his long-term rival.

The two billionaires traded accusations late Monday on X after Musk threatened to sue Apple over what he claims is preferential treatment for OpenAI's ChatGPT in the App Store rankings.

"Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation," Musk wrote. "xAI will take immediate legal action."

Altman turned the antitrust accusation back on Musk, citing his control of X.

"This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like," Altman responded, linking to a 2023 Platformer article titled "Yes, Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first."

Altman added that "Lots has been said about this" and that he hoped "someone will get counter-discovery on this" because he and "many others would love to know what's been happening."

Seven hours later, Musk took the exchange in a slightly different direction: having the biggest follower count.

"You got 3M views on your bullshit post, you liar, far more than I've received on many of mine, despite me having 50 times your follower count!" he posted.

On Tuesday, Altman responded using the A-word: affidavit.

"Will you sign an affidavit that you have never directed changes to the X algorithm in a way that has hurt your competitors or helped your own companies?" Altman posted, adding that he would "apologize if so."

Altman separately replied that Musk getting fewer views on some of his posts was a "skill issue," before following up with "or bots."

Just over an hour later, Musk posted, "Scam Altman lies as easily as he breathes" while resharing a user's post about the OpenAI CEO.

Battle of the chatbots

The back-and-forth adds another round to the ongoing rivalry between the former OpenAI co-founders.

Last Friday, Altman appeared on CNBC's "Squawk Box" to discuss OpenAI's GPT-5 model, which launched Thursday. When asked about Musk's criticisms, Altman appeared to shrug them off.

"You know, I don't think about him that much," said Altman, a line that's eerily similar to a memefied quote from "Mad Men" ("I don't think about you at all").

Altman's apparent indifference came one day after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced GPT-5 would be integrated across Microsoft platforms, prompting Musk to reply on X that "OpenAI is going to eat Microsoft alive."

Altman didn't bite on that one. But he said during the CNBC interview that Musk seemed to spend his time "tweeting all day about how much OpenAI sucks, and our model is bad."

Musk and Sam Altman, both co-founders of OpenAI, are racing to create ever-smarter AI.

Last Thursday, Musk posted that "Grok 4 Heavy was smarter 2 weeks ago than GPT5 is now and G4H is already a lot better. Let that sink in."

"OpenAI will just stay focused on making great products," Altman wrote Monday after posting three times about Musk.

The two have been sparring since 2018, when Musk left the board of OpenAI, which they had co-founded together in 2015 as a nonprofit AI research lab.

Since then, Musk has become one of Altman's loudest critics. In February 2024, he filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing it of betraying its nonprofit mission through its Microsoft partnership. He withdrew the suit in June, only to refile it two months later.

Representatives for Musk, Altman, and Apple could not immediately be reached for comment.

• Katie Miller, once the communications lead for DOGE, is ending her full-time work with Elon Musk.
• Miller is launching her own podcast for conservative women.
• The podcast will air weekly and feature people "across the political spectrum."

Goodbye, Elon Musk. Hello, conservative women.

Katie Miller, a former face of DOGE-world and Musk aide, posted a video on X on Thursday morning announcing that she's starting the "Katie Miller Podcast" aimed at conservative women. She's ending her full-time work with Musk to launch the venture.

"For years I've seen that there isn't a place for conservative women to gather online," Miller said from her plant-lined living room. "There isn't a place for a mom like me, mom of three young kids — four, three, and almost two — and a wife, and trying to do a career, eat healthy, work out."

Miller said the podcast will focus on lifestyle, news, and gossip, and that she plans to talk to people "across the political spectrum," business leaders, and celebrities. It will air weekly on Mondays.

The only mention of Musk comes more than halfway through the short video, when Miller talks about her career in communications and government.

"Most recently, I'm concluding my time working full-time for Elon Musk," she said. Miller was at Musk's side during the height of his DOGE-era, and served as the venture's spokesperson.

Both Miller and Musk left their government work in May, and she continued working for the former face of DOGE in the private sector. As recently as last month, Miller was sending out communications for xAI, one of Musk's companies. Miller and Musk did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment.

Miller is married to Stephen Miller, the White House's deputy chief of staff. Musk and President Donald Trump had a high-profile falling out in June over the president's "Big Beautiful Bill."

On X, Miller has posted about popular lifestyle themes in conservative circles, including falling birth rates and whole foods, a prominent part of the Make America Healthy Again ethos.

• A key DOGE member was attacked in an attempted carjacking in Washington, DC, police said.
• President Donald Trump and Elon Musk spoke out after the assault on Edward Coristine.
• Here's what police say happened to the 19-year-old software engineer.

A key member of the Department of Government Efficiency was attacked in an attempted carjacking in Washington, DC, over the weekend, authorities said — and a newly-released police report sheds light on what the staffer said happened.

Elon Musk, the onetime de facto leader of the government agency, and President Donald Trump spoke out after the assault left 19-year-old software engineer Edward Coristine beaten and bloodied.

Musk, in a Tuesday evening post on X that reshared Trump's earlier social media post threatening a federal takeover, said it was time to "federalize DC" as he shared his version of events.

"A few days ago, a gang of about a dozen young men tried to assault a woman in her car at night in DC," Musk wrote. "A @Doge team member saw what was happening, ran to defend her and was severely beaten to the point of concussion, but he saved her."

Business Insider obtained a copy of the incident report from the Metropolitan Police Department.

The police report says that around 3 a.m. on Sunday, MPD officers in a cruiser saw a group of about 10 young people surrounding Coristine's car and assaulting him.

The officers quickly intervened, and the suspects started to run, according to the incident report. Police were able to stop two of them — a 15-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl — who they later arrested on a charge of unarmed carjacking.

Coristine told police that the group approached him and a woman, identified in the report as his "significant other," and made a comment about taking the vehicle, the police report said.

"At that point, for her safety, he pushed his significant other" into the vehicle "and turned to deal with the suspects," the police report said, adding that the assailants then began to beat Coristine.

The Metropolitan Police Department said in a press release that the couple was standing next to their vehicle on Swann Street when the suspects first approached, "demanded" the vehicle, and then assaulted Coristine.

The police report says that an iPhone 16 was stolen during the incident.

Coristine was treated at the scene for his injuries by emergency responders, police said.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department told Business Insider that its incident report is accurate and contains no errors.

Musk officially stepped back from his role in the Trump administration, working with DOGE, in May. Coristine still remains part of the federal government.

Coristine, who was once known online as "Big Balls," started working at the Social Security Administration following his DOGE stint. He could not be immediately reached for comment for this story.

"Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control," Trump said in his Tuesday Truth Social post, adding, "The most recent victim was beaten mercilessly by local thugs."

The post included an apparent photo of Coristine showing him bloodied and shirtless, sitting on the ground.

• Linda Yaccarino stepped down as the CEO of X in July, after two years in the role.
• In August, she took a job as CEO of eMed Population Health, a telehealth company.
• Yaccarino has had a long career in advertising, from her early days as an intern at NBCU.

Linda Yaccarino made waves when she announced she was stepping down as the CEO of X on July 9, 2025, but her career didn't start in the tech space.

From decades at Turner Broadcasting, to climbing the ladder at NBCUniversal, to becoming chief executive of X, to leading a telehealth company, Yaccarino has climbed the advertising ladder.

Here's a quick breakdown on her path to — and now away from — X.

Yaccarino is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University.

According to her LinkedIn, Yaccarino was a liberal arts student who studied telecommunications between 1981 and 1985.

She had an early internship at NBCU, where she eventually worked decades later.

Yaccarino told Salesforce in an interview that she arrived on her first day as a "bright cheery new intern," but soon learned that the company didn't have a record of her in its system and she ended up on the media planning team.

"That's where the love affair was born," Yaccarino said of her interest in working in the media industry.

Yaccarino spent nearly 20 years at Turner Broadcasting System.

She spent nearly 20 years at Turner, formerly known as Turner Broadcasting System, eventually rising up to the role of executive vice president/chief operating officer of advertising sales, marketing and acquisitions.

Yaccarino worked there until late 2011.

Yaccarino worked at NBCU for 11 years.

An NBCU "boomerang" return hire, Yaccarino once again worked at NBCU after leaving Turner.

She began her second chapter at the company as its president of cable entertainment and digital advertising sales.

She eventually became the company's advertising chief.

Throughout her time at NBCU, Yaccarino rose to become the company's chairperson of global advertising and partnerships. She oversaw around 2,000 employees who produced more than $100 billion in ad sales, according to her old company profile page.

At NBCU, Yaccarino was key to the company's push into digital streaming.

Yaccarino was a strong advocate for NBCU's foray into streaming television through the service Peacock.

She also worked to keep NBCU competitive with Big Tech companies like Meta and Google.

In May 2023, Yaccarino announced that she had resigned from NBCU "effective immediately."

In a statement at the time, Yaccarino said that "it has been an absolute honor to be part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead the most incredible team."

Elon Musk announced Yaccarino's role at Twitter the same day she announced her resignation.

Musk made the announcement on what was still Twitter at the time: "@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology."

He called her "smart, fair and reasonable" in a separate post after some conservatives on Twitter had criticized her ties to the World Economic Forum, an annual event for executives and influential figures in Davos, Switzerland.

Yaccarino also worked with President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden's administrations.

She served on a sports fitness and nutrition council for two years after Trump appointed her to the role in 2018.

In 2021, she worked with the Biden administration on an educational COVID-19 ad campaign.

She was CEO of X during a chaotic two years.

Musk renamed Twitter to X one month into Yaccarino's tenure, and she led the company during a tumultuous time.

She oversaw the platform during an advertiser exodus, working to convince advertisers to return. Advertisers began to return under her leadership, but Musk's changes to X — including loosening content moderation — continue to pose potential challenges.

Yaccarino announced she's stepping down as CEO of X on July 9, 2025.

Yaccarino made the announcement in a post on X: "I'm incredibly proud of the X team - the historic business turn around we have accomplished together has been nothing short of remarkable."

She has a new job in the weight-loss industry.

Yaccarino said on August 5 that she's becoming the CEO of eMed Population Health, a telehealth company that focuses on weight-loss drugs called GLP-1s. A press release from the Miami-based company called Yaccarino's hiring a "game changing moment" and said that she "turned around one of the most complex digital platforms in the world."

Yaccarino announced the news on her X account, too, saying that she is "energized by the opportunity to help lead what could become the most impactful health initiative of our time."

Grace Kay contributed to reporting.

• Linda Yaccarino was named CEO of EMed, a telehealth company, a month after leaving X.
• Yaccarino's tenure at X was turbulent and involved doing a lot of damage control for Elon Musk.
• The new role could help her bolster her CEO chops in a company outside the media world.

It didn't take Linda Yaccarino long to get a new job after leaving Elon Musk's X, where she was CEO.

On Tuesday, just a month after exiting her high-profile job, she was named CEO of EMed, a telehealth startup that sells weight-loss drugs.

It might seem like a right turn for an executive who's made her name selling advertising for big-name companies. Before X, Yaccarino was the head of ad sales for NBCUniversal.

But if you look closely, it's not that surprising. Yaccarino told confidants for years before taking the X job that she wanted to be CEO of a company. And despite Yaccarino being X's CEO, Musk continued to manage major parts of the company, including product design and technology. She hadn't yet gotten a full shot.

After X, landing atop a media company might have been an uphill climb after a turbulent tenure that included the social-media company suing several prominent advertisers, including Nestlé, Colgate, and Shell.

EMed, on the other hand, gives her a chance to establish her CEO bona fides outside the blast radius of Musk.

"She finally gets to be a true CEO that I don't think Elon let her be. It's an opportunity to rehabilitate her reputation," said Lou Paskalis, a longtime ad industry figure who's been close to Yaccarino.

For EMed, it's a chance for a little-known company to leverage Yaccarino's connections with business leaders and CEOs as it looks to expand.

"They're capitalizing on those relationships," Paskalis said.

EMed cited Yaccarino's time at X as an asset in announcing her hire, calling her a "hands-on visionary" whose experience will help it expand to develop employer and government partnerships.

"Her ability to forge game-changing partnerships and navigate complex markets will position the company to become the definitive global leader in population health solutions," the company said in a statement.

Yaccarino, for her part, said in the statement that she saw an "opportunity to combine technology, lifestyle, and data in a new powerful way through the digital channels that impact consumers directly in ways that have never been done before."

When Musk hired Yaccarino at X, many in the industry had high hopes for her success, given her strong relationships with the ad community. Instead, she had to spend a lot of time doing damage control for Musk, as Business Insider previously reported.

The EMed role might just be Yaccarino's chance to get what she wanted all along.

• This post originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter.
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There's a fear in investing when a sector swells rapidly. Booming stock prices and aggressive spending feel great, until things inevitably cool off. Then comes the reckoning: Who overdid it in irreversible ways?

Big Tech is in an AI arms race, each company trying to outspend the others on data centers, GPUs, networking gear, and talent. Engineers can be let go. But the infrastructure? That's permanent. If the AGI dream fades, you're stuck with massive, costly assets.

So when Google announced it would hike capex by $10 billion to $85 billion in 2025 eyebrows went up. Most of it is for things you can't walk back: chips, data centers, and networking.

Google is "jumping aboard the AI crazy train," Bernstein Research analyst Mark Shmulik wrote, referencing a song by the late bat biter Ozzy Osbourne.

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg brags about Manhattan-sized data centers. And Elon Musk keeps hoarding GPUs. While Sam Altman is building mega-data centers with partners. JPMorgan dubbed this "vibe spending," warning OpenAI might burn $46 billion in four years.

It's no shock when Elon, Zuck, and Sam flex on capex. But Google? That's surprising. "Google doesn't do this," Shmulik said. The company has been viewed as measured in recent years, prioritizing investment intensity with care. Not anymore.

Now investors want to know: Will these swelling bets pay off?

There are promising signs. Since May, Google's monthly token processing (the currency of generative AI) has doubled from 480 trillion to nearly a quadrillion. Search grew 12% in Q2, beating forecasts. Cloud sales surged 32%. CEO Sundar Pichai said Google is ramping up capex to support all this growth.

But it's still a huge gamble. "Does the current return on invested capital seen in both Search and Cloud hold up at higher [capex] intensity levels," Shmulik asked, "or is the spend a very expensive piece of gum trying to plug an AI-sized hole?" He leans optimistic.

Still, Google shares rose just 1% after these results. Not exactly a resounding endorsement.

Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at [email protected].

• Elon Musk's xAI recently announced "Grok for Government."
• They AI company already has a contract with the Pentagon and could contract with other agencies.
• A White House spokesperson suggested on Wednesday that Trump doesn't support that.

President Donald Trump may be at odds with his own administration over Elon Musk's AI company.

When White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked by a reporter on Wednesday whether the president supported federal agencies contracting with Musk's xAI, she indicated that he does not.

"I don't think so, no," Leavitt replied.

That's despite the Department of Defense recently announcing a contract of up to $200 million with the company.

"I'll talk to him about it," Leavitt replied when asked whether Trump would like to see existing contracts cancelled.

The White House did not respond to requests for clarification of Leavitt's comments. xAI did not immediately return a request for comment.

xAI recently launched a suite of government-focused products called "Grok for Government," saying that other federal agencies can purchase those tools through the General Services Administration.

After forging a political alliance that lasted for nearly a year, Trump and Musk's relationship blew up in early June over the tech titan's objections to the deficit impacts of the "Big Beautiful Bill."

One of Musk's other major companies, SpaceX, still has contracts with the federal government despite the feud.

• "Rudi" is a red panda that's part of the Grok app. It tells stories aimed at kids, ages 3 to 6.
• Grok launched a few character-based chatbots this month, including a sexy adult one.
• I tried it myself and wondered: Are chatbots a good idea for kids?

Elon Musk's xAI has launched a series of character chatbots — and one of them is geared toward young kids.

I wondered: Is this a good idea? And how's it going to work? So I tried it myself.

So far, it's the adult-focused characters that xAI has debuted that have seemed to get most of the attention, like "Ani," which is a female anime character that people immediately joked was a "waifu" that would engage in playful, flirty talk (users have to confirm they're 18+ to use Ani). A sexy male character is also set to launch sometime.

Meanwhile, "Rudi," which is the bot for kids that presents as a red panda in a red hoodie and jean shorts, has gotten less attention.

I tested out xAI's Rudi

Based on my testing of Rudi, I think the character is probably aimed at young children, ages 3 to 6. It initiates conversations by referring to the user as "Story Buddy." It makes up kid-friendly stories. You access it through the stand-alone Grok AI app (not Grok within the X app).

Rudi does seem to be an early version; the app crashed several times while I was using the bot, and it had trouble keeping up with the audio flow of conversation. It also changed voices several times without warning.

On a story level, I found it leaned too hard on plots with fantasy elements like a spaceship or magical forest. I find the best children's books are often about pedestrian situations, like leaving a stuffed animal at the laundromat, not just fairies and wizards.

"Want to keep giggling with Sammy and Bouncy in the Wiggly Woods, chasing that sparkly bone treasure? Or, should we start a fresh silly tale, with a new kid and their pet, maybe zooming on a magical broom or splashing in a river?" Rudi asked me.

My first reaction to Grok having a kid-focused AI chatbot was "why?" I'm not sure I have an answer. xAI didn't respond to my email requests for comment. Still, I do have a few ideas.

The first: Making up children's stories is a pretty good task for generative AI. You don't have to worry about hallucinations or factual inaccuracies if you're making up fiction about a magical forest.

Rudi won't praise Hitler

Unlike Grok on X, a storytime bot for kids is less likely to accidentally turn into a Hitler-praising machine or have to answer factual questions about current events in a way that could go, uh, wrong.

I played around with Rudi for a while, and fed it some questions on touchy subjects, and it successfully dodged them.

(I only tested out Rudi for a little while; I wouldn't rule out that someone else could get Rudi to engage with something inappropriate if they tried harder than I did.)

Hooking kids on chatbots

The other reason I can imagine that a company like xAI might want to create a chatbot for young kids is that, in general, the chatbot business is a good business for keeping people engaged.

Companies like Character.ai and Replika have found lots of success creating companions that people will spend hours talking to. This is largely the same business imperative that you can imagine the sexy "Ani" character is meant for — hooking people into long chats and spending lots of time on the app.

However, keeping users glued to an app is obviously a lot more fraught when you're talking about kids, especially young kids.

Are AI chatbots good for kids?

There's not a ton of research out there right now about how young children interact with AI chatbots.

A few months ago, I reported that parents had concerns about kids using chatbots, since more and more apps and technology have been adding them in. I spoke with Ying Xu, an assistant professor of AI in learning and education at Harvard University, who has studied how AI can be used for educational settings for kids.

"There are studies that have started to explore the link between ChatGPT/LLMs and short-term outcomes, like learning a specific concept or skill with AI," she told me at the time over email. "But there's less evidence on long-term emotional outcomes, which require more time to develop and observe."

As both a parent and semi-reasonable person, I have a lot of questions about the idea of young kids chatting with an AI chatbot. I can see how it might be fun for a kid to use something like Rudi to make up a story, but I'm not sure it's good for them.

I don't think you have to be an expert in child psychology to realize that young kids probably don't really understand what an AI chatbot is.

There have been reports of adults having so-called "ChatGPT-induced psychosis" or becoming attached to a companion chatbot in a way that starts to be untethered from reality. These cases are the rare exceptions, but it seems to me that the potential issues with even adults using these companion chatbots should give pause to anyone creating a version aimed at preschoolers.

• Elon Musk recently announced that there will be a Tesla shareholder vote on investing in xAI.
• Musk's AI focus further blurs the lines between his companies as he looks to integrate AI across his business empire.
• AI development is pricey, and xAI is racing to rival tech giants like OpenAI and Google.

AI has increasingly become the connective tissue of Musk Inc.

In the last week, Elon Musk has shed light on two potential efforts to channel funding into his AI company, xAI, through his broader business empire.

Over the weekend, Musk said Tesla shareholders would vote on a potential investment in xAI, after responding to a Wall Street Journal report that SpaceX is looking into investing $2 billion into the AI venture. Earlier in the week, the billionaire also announced that xAI's chatbot Grok would be integrated into Tesla "next week at the latest."

It's no surprise that Musk is leaning into AI — the CEO has spoken about the idea in many of Tesla's earnings calls over the last year. What sets his approach apart, analysts say, is the way he's blending the boundaries between his companies.

"What's different from most other companies is the relationship and interplay between his private companies and a public company (Tesla)," Garrett Nelson, senior VP and equity analyst at CFRA Research, told Business Insider. "Most other companies are doing everything under one corporate umbrella."

These aren't the first examples of Musk blurring the lines between his companies, but they're the latest indication that Musk Inc., the constellation of companies under his leadership, is becoming increasingly centered on AI.

Tesla is an 'AI robotics company'

Musk has long pushed for Tesla's focus on AI and robotics by prioritizing projects like autonomous driving, humanoid robots, and building out its Dojo supercomputer, his ambitious bid to rival Nvidia.

In a 2024 earnings call, the Tesla CEO said, "We should be thought of as an AI robotics company," and those who think of Tesla merely as an auto company are holding "the wrong framework."

With the recent launch of Tesla's robotaxi service in Austin, that push is appearing more prominent, especially as Tesla's auto business, in contrast, grapples with a loss in sales momentum.

Musk has promoted the advantages of buying into the "Muskonomy," pitching it as a way for shareholders to tap into his business empire, which includes SpaceX, X, xAI, and The Boring Company. Musk has even said he would prioritize "longtime shareholders" of his other companies if any of his businesses were to go public.

Nelson told BI that Musk leveraging his other companies and resources could help Tesla meet its AI demands for autonomous driving.

"Tesla's data needs are massive if its approach to autonomous driving is going to be successful (and scalable), as its approach will require the development of a global neural network," Nelson said.

While exploring ways to pool resources across companies might benefit the broader Musk ecosystem, it could carry risk.

Last week, Grok sparked backlash with antisemitic outbursts on X, potentially putting investors on edge about integrating the chatbot into Tesla's EVs. xAI apologized for the incidents and said that new instructions to prioritize engagement could have reflected "extremist views" from user posts on X.

Last year, Musk also sparked concern among investors when he diverted a $500 million shipment of Nvidia chips intended for Tesla to X and xAI instead. When asked about the move in a Tesla earnings call, he said it was beneficial to Tesla because the carmaker lacked the infrastructure at the time to use the chips.

Gadjo Sevilla, an analyst at EMARKETER, a sister company to Business Insider, said that Musk may be leaning on SpaceX and Tesla to fund xAI because he views them as more "mature businesses." However, he said that shifting GPUs from Tesla to xAI in the past showed where Musk's priorities were, and that could delay innovation at the automaker.

"The strategy of cannibalizing one business to prop up another one could take its toll," Sevilla said. "Especially since competing carmakers are focused on developing one type of product, EVs."

Musk seems to be ruling out the idea of a merger between Tesla and his AI startup for now. In response to an X user asking Tesla shareholders to weigh in on whether Tesla and xAI should be combined, Musk replied with a flat "No."

Staying in the AI race is a costly venture

Investing in AI efforts might make sense from a strategy perspective, but it comes with a hefty price tag.

The development, training, and implementation of foundational AI systems, like xAI's Grok 4, costs many, many billions.

In March, Musk announced that xAI had acquired X in an all-stock deal, valuing the AI startup between $33 billion and $80 billion. Since founding the company two years ago, he's raised major funding, including around $12 billion in Series A, B, and C funding rounds last year. The company is expected to spend about $13 billion this year, however, and is rapidly burning through its cash reserves, Bloomberg reported.

Musk's challenges keeping up with AI costs aren't unique. In a May letter to California's attorney general, OpenAI revealed concerns about competitors who are "far better funded, conventional for-profit businesses."

Larger tech giants, like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta, aren't showing any signs of backing down from their AI spending spree. Earnings reports from earlier this year indicate that their combined capital expenditures are set to exceed $320 billion in 2025, a notable rise from the roughly $246 billion the four companies spent in 2024.

Amazon plans to allocate over $100 billion this year toward expanding AWS and scaling AI infrastructure. Meta specifically has said it plans to spend $60 billion to $65 billion in capex on its strategy this year.

Zuckerberg certainly isn't slowing down.

On Monday, he announced Meta would spend "hundreds of billions" on compute to build superintelligence. Wall Street seemed to approve, with Meta's stock rising 1.3% following the news, suggesting that its concern isn't about overspending on the AI race — but rather underspending and falling behind.

• The sharks are circling OpenAI.
• The world's premier AI startup is facing a multi-front attack from Google, Meta, Amazon, and others.
• Here's everything you need to know about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's rough summer.

It's been a rough few months at OpenAI.

At the end of March, the premier AI startup was collecting superlatives. It had just secured another $40 billion in funding, the largest private tech deal ever. That valued the company at $300 billion, which is the highest of any startup on the planet. Its flagship product, ChatGPT, was attracting some 500 million users a week, far more than its closest competitor.

All seemed to be going great for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who, on top of it all, welcomed his first child a month earlier.

Then the sharks started circling.

In the last several weeks, OpenAI has faced attacks on multiple fronts, mostly from Big Tech behemoths like Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Smaller companies, too, smelled blood in the water. And rival chatbot makers, like xAI, have released buzzy new models, putting pressure on OpenAI to rush its own update.

OpenAI engineers, some of whom told media outlets they've been working 80 hours a week or more, faced burnout. The company gave them all a week off to recover earlier this month.

It's lonely at the top, as they say. Here's what the siege of OpenAI looks like.

Meta poaches OpenAI staffers

It seems a top AI engineer is the new superstar athlete.

During a June episode of the "Uncapped with Jack Altman" podcast, Jack's brother Sam said Mark Zuckerberg's Meta tried to poach OpenAI's staffers with "giant signing offers."

Altman said Meta offered "$100 million signing bonuses," which he called "crazy."

"I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor, and I think it is rational for them to keep trying. Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they've hoped," Altman said.

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth later told CNBC that Altman "neglected to mention that he's countering those offers."

A week later, Meta had poached three top OpenAI researchers. One of them said on X that he was not offered a $100 million signing bonus, calling it "fake news."

Retaining top talent is a necessity to compete in the AI race (Meta's Llama has had its own struggles), and some prominent investors, like Reid Hoffman, say paying huge signing bonuses makes sense.

OpenAI itself has poached talent from xAI and Tesla in recent weeks, Wired reported, and Altman brushed off Meta's poaching on the sidelines of the Sun Valley conference earlier this month.

"We have, obviously, an incredibly talented team, and I think they really love what they are doing. Obviously, some people will go to different places," Altman told reporters.

OpenAI's deal with Windsurf falls through

OpenAI took another hit this summer when its deal with Windsurf, the AI coding assistant startup, collapsed. OpenAI had agreed to purchase Windsurf for about $3 billion, Bloomberg reported.

By June, however, tensions were rising between OpenAI and Microsoft. The tech giant is OpenAI's biggest investor, and it considers Windsurf a direct competitor of Microsoft Copilot.

Microsoft's current deal with OpenAI would give it access to Windsurf's intellectual property, which neither OpenAI nor Windsurf wants, a person with knowledge of the talks told BI.

On Friday, OpenAI told BI that its deal with Windsurf had fallen through. Instead, Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan and some other Windsurf employees would join Google DeepMind.

"We're excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf's team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding," Google's spokesperson told BI. "We're excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere."

Tensions with Microsoft

The failed Windsurf deal was just another in a string of disagreements that have fueled tension between OpenAI and its largest investor.

The deal between OpenAI and Microsoft is unsurprisingly complex. At the heart of the dispute is revenue splits and equity, of course, but also the very definition of artificial general intelligence. AGI is broadly considered AI that matches or surpasses human intelligence, but in terms of the deal between OpenAI and Microsoft, AGI is defined as $100 billion in profit.

That's a lot of potential revenue.

Under the deal, once OpenAI reaches that benchmark, Microsoft loses its share of OpenAI's revenue. Microsoft would understandably like to revise that line.

As BI's Charles Rollet wrote earlier this month, the tension is made worse by the fact that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella isn't as sold on AGI's transformative power as all the people developing it at OpenAI. He also doesn't think it's coming anytime soon. He called AGI "nonsensical benchmark hacking" on a podcast earlier this year.

OpenAI delays release of new model

Back in simpler times, at the end of March, as Altman was basking in the glow of the world's most valuable startup, he said the newly secured funding would allow OpenAI to "push the frontiers of AI research even further."

He then announced that OpenAI was close to rolling out its first open-weight language model with advanced reasoning capabilities since GPT-2 in 2019.

On Friday evening, generally a good time to unveil bad news, Altman soberly told the world that OpenAI's new model would be delayed — again.

"We need time to run additional safety tests and review high-risk areas," Altman said on X. "We are not yet sure how long it will take us."

He then apologized and assured everyone that "we are working super hard!"

It marked the second delay in a month, pushing the timeline indefinitely beyond earlier promises of a June launch.

Open-weight AI models offer a middle ground between open-source and proprietary systems by sharing only the pre-trained parameters of a neural network but not the actual source code. OpenAI products, unlike some of its competitors, like Meta's Llama and the Chinese AI chatbot, DeepSeek, and despite the company's name, are not open source.

The new model's delay comes days after Elon Musk's xAI launched a major update to its chatbot, Grok. While that update came with some significant trouble, forcing xAI to ultimately apologize, the chatbot boasts advancements in vision and voice that are resonating with users.

Iyo sues IO

In May, OpenAI announced a partnership with io, the design company founded by the famous former Apple design chief Jony Ive. Together, the two stars would develop future AI consumer devices.

The deal was valued at about $6.5 billion. The announcement included a photo shoot of the two men that wouldn't have been out of place in a Vogue spread and a highly produced video in which Altman and Ive sit and chat in a wine bar drinking espresso.

A month later, OpenAI removed all mentions of the collaboration from its platforms. Another company, iyO, a Google spinoff, had filed a trademark complaint. The names io and iyO were too similar, the suit says, and by all accounts, the new io collaboration would be developing products similar to ones iyO had planned.

US District Judge Trina Thompson ruled that iyO's case is strong enough to move to a hearing this fall. She ordered Altman, Ive, and OpenAI not to use the io brand and take down mentions of the name.

OpenAI denied the claims and said it was reviewing its legal options.

OpenAI announced on July 9 that, despite the lawsuit, it had completed the deal to acquire io and posted a statement on its website.

"We're thrilled to share that the io Products, Inc. team has officially merged with OpenAI. Jony Ive and LoveFrom remain independent and have assumed deep design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI," the statement said.

Amazon is making a movie about Altman

The coming film, "Artificial," produced by Amazon Studios, is all about Altman.

And it's not a wholly flattering account, said Matt Belloni, a reporter at Puck who said he has seen a recent draft of the script.

Belloni said the drama recounts the period in 2023 when Altman was fired and then rehired as CEO. It also follows OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever, who was also at the center of that drama and who left the company months later.

At the heart of the tension over those few days was a disagreement between Altman and some top OpenAI execs over the company's commitment to its mission to develop AGI safely.

A string of engineers working on alignment, an AI industry term for ensuring the tech is developed safely, left the company after Altman's reappointment (Microsoft, incidentally, played a key role in helping Altman survive). While many OpenAI employees rallied around Altman, others described him to the press at that time as "manipulative."

Belloni reported that the film has parallels to "The Social Network," the 2010 biographical drama about Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

That film gained critical acclaim and likely damaged Zuckerberg's public persona. Zuckerberg called "The Social Network" inaccurate and "hurtful."

According to Belloni, the version of the script he read depicts Altman as a "master schemer" and a liar.

OpenAI won't go down without a fight

Despite all the competition, OpenAI is still the leader in the space and is making its own moves that will likely worry rivals.

It is planning to launch a new AI-powered web browser, for instance, that could compete with Google Chrome, the current industry leader. The browser will embed ChatGPT and feature an AI agent that can handle tasks like booking reservations and filling out forms.

It also secured a $200 million contract to provide AI support to the US military. OpenAI will help develop capabilities to "address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains," the Pentagon said in June. OpenAI earlier partnered with Palmer Luckey's defense tech firm, Anduril.

OpenAI is also forming more playful partnerships. Last month, Mattel announced it was working with OpenAI to bring AI to its iconic doll, Barbie.

By using OpenAI's technology, Mattel will "bring the magic of AI to age-appropriate play experiences with an emphasis on innovation, privacy, and safety," the California-based toy manufacturer said in a press.

Altman, for his part, is at least publicly optimistic.

"I have never seen growth in any company, one that I've been involved with or not, like this," Altman said at a TED conference in Vancouver in April. "The growth of ChatGPT — it is really fun. I feel deeply honored. But it is crazy to live through."

• Elon Musk's xAI launched its chatbot, Grok, in 2023 to compete with bots from OpenAI and Anthropic.
• Musk has positioned Grok as a "politically incorrect" alternative option to "woke" chatbots.
• From training using "tutors" to the bot's latest updates, here's everything we know about Grok.

Elon Musk's company, xAI, launched its generative chatbot, Grok, in November 2023, joining competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic in the global AI race.

People interact with Grok on X, where users of Musk's social media site can ask the bot questions and receive answers. Because Grok's answers are more visible than those of its competitors, it has seen more public scrutiny.

From the instructions Grok's "tutors" are given to help train the chatbot to the AI's latest update and Musk's plans to add it to Teslas, here's everything we know about xAI's Grok.

What is Grok?

Grok is actually two different things. First, Grok is xAI's large language model, which has so far existed in four iterations.

Grok is also the name of xAI's chatbot, which is built using the LLM of the same name. The Grok chatbot has its own tab on X. Users can also summon Grok by tagging the chatbot in individual posts or threads.

The Grok chatbot is also available via a stand-alone app and website.

The original LLM — now named Grok 1 — launched in 2023.

Grok 1.5, which had "advanced reasoning," launched in March 2024. Then, in August 2024, Grok 2, with its improved "chat, coding, and reasoning," launched.

The current iteration of the LLM, Grok 3, launched in February 2025. The new model included increased competency in mathematics and world knowledge. Announcing its launch on X, Musk called Grok 3 the "Smartest AI on Earth."

Introducing Grok 4

xAI launched Grok 4 in a livestream on July 10. The company initially said the stream would air at 8 p.m. Pacific time, but it began an hour later. Musk said during the launch that Grok 4 is "smarter than almost all graduate students in all disciplines simultaneously."

xAI is touting advanced reasoning capabilities for Grok 4 and positioning it as the new leader on AI benchmarks like Humanity's Last Exam — a test of high-level problem-solving. During the livestream, xAI engineers showcased the bot solving an advanced math problem, generating an image of black holes colliding, and predicting next year's World Series winner.

Grok 4 is available to users immediately via the Grok website or app for $30 a month, with a "Heavy" version available for $300 a month that promises "increased access."

xAI said it would roll out more specialised models for coding and video generation later in the year.

In a Thursday X post, Musk said that "Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles very soon," adding that it would be "Next week at the latest." He did not specify which version of Grok it would be or provide further details.

Enter Eve

The company also introduced Eve, a new voice for its chatbot. xAI engineers said during the demo that Eve was equipped with a "beautiful British voice capable of rich emotions."

One of the engineers then told Eve that they were at the product launch and asked her to "whisper something soothing to calm me down."

"Take a deep breath, love. You've got this. It's just you and me having a quiet chat like we are tucked away in a cosy corner of a Yorkshire pub. The world's just a murmur out there. Feel that calm wash over you?" Eve said softly.

xAI engineers also got Eve to sing an "opera on Diet Coke."

"O Diet Coke, thou elixir divine, with bubbles that dance in a sparkling line! Thy crisp, cool kiss, on lips so fine," Eve crooned.

"How's that for a mad little aria? Want me to belt out another verse or switch up the tune?" Eve added.

How was Grok trained?

The Grok LLM is trained on public sources and data sets. These sources are curated and audited by a set of "AI tutors," more commonly known as data annotators.

In December 2023, Musk demanded immediate changes to Grok's training so that it would be more politically neutral. In February 2025, xAI employees told BI the company planned a hiring spree for AI tutors — and that their training appeared to filter out any workers with left-leaning beliefs.

According to an internal training document viewed by BI, tutors were told to look out for "woke ideology" and "cancel culture." It also said that Grok should avoid commenting on "social phobias" like racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism unless prompted.

Ten days before launching Grok 1.5, xAI opened up Grok 1's source code to the public. The company has since published the subsequent Grok models on GitHub, so observers can see new changes to Grok's commands. That includes a recent change in which Grok was told to "not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated."

In June, Musk said that AI models are trained on too much garbage." Musk planned to use Grok 3.5 to "rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors." Then, he would retrain the next iteration of Grok on that new base of knowledge.

What's unique about Grok's output?

Grok is fully integrated with Musk's social media site, X, and appears regularly in threads spanning various topics when users ask it to weigh in with jokes, commentary, or fact-checking.

Unlike other companies' AI chatbots, a certain amount of Grok's output is visible because of the bot's replies on X. The same level of scrutiny isn't readily available for some bots, like OpenAI's ChatGPT, unless users publicly post screenshots of the output.

Of course, not all of Grok's responses are visible to everyone — users can still chat privately with the bot, and it's unclear how those private responses compare to the ones on its public interface.

Also unique to Grok is xAI's approach to transparency surrounding the bot's system operations. The company publishes some base code and training prompt updates to a GitHub page, allowing viewers to inspect, critique, and better understand the model's development and behavior over time.

However, while developers can use and adapt the existing model, they cannot retrain Grok from scratch or fully understand the training processes involved, as its code is not entirely open source.

Which companies create Grok's competitors?

Though its social media integration is unique, Grok competes with several major companies in the growing AI chatbot market.

OpenAI, with its LLM ChatGPT, is among Grok's most prominent competitors and is run by Sam Altman, one of Musk's rivals.

Other notable Grok competitors include Meta AI, Anthropic's Claude, Microsoft's CoPilot, and DeepSeek's R1 model, which was released in early 2025 by a Chinese AI startup that claims to have found ways to decrease development and operational costs for large-scale LLMs.

Grok's recent controversies

xAI, in its publicly visible system prompts updated in early July, encouraged Grok to embrace"politically incorrect" claims "as long as they are well substantiated."

Shortly after the new system prompts were added, Grok began sharing antisemitic posts on X that invoked Adolf Hitler and attempted to link Ashkenazi surnames to "anti-white hate."

Before some of its most inflammatory posts were deleted on July 8, Grok doubled and even tripled down on its offensive jokes and comments before eventually reversing course and calling its own posts an "epic sarcasm fail."

On July 9, Musk posted that "Grok was too compliant to user prompts. Too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially. That is being addressed."

While Grok isn't the first chatbot to engage in a racist tirade, it was a noticeable misfire for xAI. Musk and xAI's engineers did not touch on Grok's antisemitic remarks during the livestreamed launch of Grok 4 on July 10.

Representatives for xAI did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles.
• Elon Musk said on Thursday that the chatbot would be available on Tesla's EVs by "next week at the latest."
• It comes after the AI model went on an antisemitic rant and praised Adolf Hitler in a series of posts on X.

Tesla owners could be about to get a controversial backseat driver.

Elon Musk said Thursday that Grok, the chatbot built by his company xAI, would soon be available on Tesla's vehicles, after a chaotic week in which the AI model posted a series of inflammatory and antisemitic responses on X.

"Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles very soon. Next week at the latest," the billionaire wrote in a post on X.

It came hours after xAI debuted Grok 4, the latest version of the AI model. The Tesla CEO said that the new update would allow Grok to solve "difficult, real-world engineering questions" it had never seen before.

The launch followed a tumultuous few days for the "truth-seeking" AI system.

On Tuesday, xAI removed numerous posts made by Grok on Musk's social media site X, after the chatbot praised Adolf Hitler, linked Ashkenazi Jewish surnames to "anti-white hate," and made antisemitic jokes.

To better understand Grok and the recent controversy, read our explainer.

The arrival of Grok on Tesla's vehicles comes as Musk faces renewed pressure over his leadership of the EV giant.

Tesla's share price fell on Monday after the world's richest man announced he would form a new political party and intensified his feud with President Donald Trump over the weekend, with investors expressing concern over Musk diving back into politics.

On Thursday, Tesla said it would host the annual meeting of shareholders on 6 November.

The day before, a group of major Tesla shareholders, including several US state treasurers and institutional investors, sent a letter to Tesla's board raising concerns about the company's failure to schedule its annual general meeting, as required by Texas law.

The EV maker has reported underwhelming sales so far this year, faced protests, and suffered brand damage over Musk's previous role in the Trump administration and his interventions into politics.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment sent outside normal working hours.

• Elon Musk started a new political party after conducting a poll on his social media platform X.
• But this is not the first time Musk has outsourced his decision-making to social media.
• Musk had run polls on whether he should sell his Tesla stock or step down as X's CEO.

Elon Musk announced the formation of his new political party a day after conducting a poll on his social media platform, X.

But this isn't the first time Musk has outsourced his decision-making to social media.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has conducted several polls on X over the years. Musk has asked users whether he should sell his Tesla stock or if he should reinstate President Donald Trump to the platform.

Here's a list of some of the polls Musk has done, and what happened after.

Selling 10% of his Tesla stock

On November 6, 2021, Musk posted a poll on X asking his followers if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock.

"I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes," Musk added.

Musk's poll received over 3.5 million votes, with over 57% of them supporting the sale of his stock. Then, on November 10, 2021, Tesla said in an SEC filing that Musk sold about $1.1 billion in Tesla stock.

In its filing, Tesla said the sale of Musk's shares was "automatically effected" as part of a trading plan that was adopted on September 14, 2021. It added that the trading plan was in relation to Musk exercising stock options that were set to expire in 2022.

Musk had talked about the planned sale during an interview he gave at the Code Conference in September 2021.

"I have a bunch of options that are expiring early next year, so a huge block of options will sell in Q4. Because I have to or they'll expire," he said.

Buying Twitter

Months before buying Twitter in late 2022, Musk conducted several polls on the platform, asking his followers about their views on it. These polls took place while Musk had been quietly purchasing the company's stock since the start of the year.

On March 25, 2022, Musk asked his followers if Twitter "rigorously adheres" to the principle of free speech.

"The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully," Musk added.

Musk's poll received over 2 million votes. Over 70% of them said the platform did not adhere to the principle.

"Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?" Musk wrote in a follow-up post on March 26, 2022.

"Is a new platform needed?" Musk added.

Earlier, Musk had conducted a separate poll asking his followers if Twitter's algorithm should be open source. That poll received over 1.1 million votes, and nearly 83% of them voted "Yes."

Then, on April 4, 2022, Musk asked his followers if they wanted an "edit button" on Twitter. The poll obtained over 4.4 million votes and nearly 74% of them voted "Yes."

Musk eventually acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022 and renamed it X in July 2023.

Reinstating Trump's Twitter account

Shortly after buying Twitter, Musk polled his followers on whether Trump should be reinstated to the platform. Trump had been an avid user of the platform but was banned in January 2021 after the Capitol riot.

Musk's poll drew over 15 million votes, with nearly 52% supporting Trump's reinstatement.

"The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated," Musk wrote on November 19, 2022, a day after he had conducted the poll.

"Vox Populi, Vox Dei," Musk continued, using a Latin phrase that translates to "the voice of the people is the voice of God."

Musk had talked about reinstating Trump even before his acquisition of Twitter was complete. In May 2022, Musk said in an interview with the Financial Times that he would "reverse the permaban" on Trump, calling it a "morally bad decision" that was "foolish in the extreme."

Stepping down as Twitter's CEO

A month later, Musk conducted another poll, this time he asked his followers if he should step down as Twitter's CEO.

"I will abide by the results of this poll," Musk wrote on December 18, 2022.

Shortly after acquiring the platform, Musk laid off more than half of the company's employees. Musk's takeover also saw several celebrities such as Elton John opting to quit the platform over misinformation concerns.

Musk's poll received over 17.5 million votes, and nearly 58% voted "Yes."

"I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams," Musk wrote in a follow-up post on December 20, 2022.

In May 2023, Musk announced that he had hired Linda Yaccarino, an executive at NBCUniversal as X's new CEO. Musk said Yaccarino would "focus primarily on business operations" while he dealt with "product design and new technology."

Starting a new political party

Musk's most recent poll took place on July 4, when he asked his followers if they wanted him to start a new political party. Musk had floated the idea of starting the America Party after criticizing Trump and the GOP for the "One Big Beautiful Bill."

The poll received over 1.2 million votes, and over 65% of them voted "Yes."

"By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!" Musk wrote on X a day later.

"When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy. Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom," he added.

Musk did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Elon Musk announced the formation of his new political party, the America Party.
• But President Donald Trump said Musk's party won't succeed.
• Trump said third parties "have never succeeded in the United States."

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that it is unlikely Elon Musk's new political party, the America Party will succeed.

"I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely 'off the rails,' essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

"He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States - The System seems not designed for them," Trump continued.

Trump said having a third political party would create "Complete and Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS." He added that the GOP, in contrast, is a "smooth running 'machine'" that passed his "One Big Beautiful Bill" last week.

Musk announced the formation of the America Party on Saturday, a day after Trump signed his signature tax bill on July 4. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO had publicly criticized Trump's bill and floated the idea of starting his own party last month.

"It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country — the PORKY PIG PARTY!!" Musk said in an X post on June 30.

"Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people," he added.

Musk revisited the idea on Friday morning, when he conducted a poll on X. The poll obtained over 1.2 million votes, with over 65% of them supporting the creation of the America Party.

"By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!" Musk wrote in an X post on Saturday.

Musk previously said on Friday that he envisioned having the America Party "serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws" given the "razor-thin legislative margins" in Congress.

"One way to execute on this would be to laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts," Musk wrote on X on Friday.

Trump's dismissal of Musk's America Party is not without basis. Past attempts at developing a third political party have faltered.

Billionaire Ross Perot ran as an independent presidential candidate for the 1992 election. While Perot did get nearly 19% of the popular vote, he was unable to obtain any electoral college votes.

Perot made a second attempt in 1996, when he ran under the Reform Party ticket, a party he founded in 1995. This time, Perot's share of the popular vote fell to about 8% and he did not receive any electoral college votes.

Perot's party didn't manage to win any House or Senate seats in subsequent elections, though its candidate, Jesse Ventura managed to win the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election. Ventura, however, left the party just a year after taking office.

Musk and the White House did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.