SAN FRANCISCO – In what is being described as the most radical workforce automation experiment in tech history, Elon Musk has begun systematically replacing human engineers and moderators at X (formerly Twitter) with xAI’s large language model Grok, sources inside the company confirmed today.
The hardest-hit division: X’s Trust & Safety engineering team, responsible for combating spam, disinformation, and illegal content. The unit, which numbered over 100 when Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, has been slashed to fewer than 10 people, an effective 90% reduction. Insiders say the remaining members are now little more than “human override buttons” for Grok’s automated moderation decisions.
Last month, Musk publicly declared that X’s legacy recommendation algorithm would be completely retired “within weeks” and replaced by Grok, which will analyse every post and video in real time to curate personalised feeds. That transition is now underway.
Leadership of the Grok integration has been handed to 33-year-old Ukrainian twin brothers Dima and Ievgen Soboliev, both former Apple and Meta engineers who report directly to Musk. The duo has instituted what employees call “Musk Mode”: mandatory weekend office hours, daily efficiency audits, and immediate termination for anyone deemed non-essential to the AI transition.
In a symbolic move, Musk personally painted the word “MACROHARD” in giant white letters across the roof of xAI’s Memphis supercomputer complex. The trademarked name refers to his new initiative: a fully AI-operated software company designed to build everything from operating systems to video games without a single human developer.
The cost-cutting has already stalled major projects. X Money, the company’s planned payments platform, has been frozen by U.S. regulators, citing insufficient staffing for fraud prevention following the layoffs.
Even xAI itself is not immune: in September, the company cut roughly one-third of its data-annotation workforce, more than 500 people, leaving a predominantly Chinese labelling team that went viral after a former employee posted a group photo claiming he was “literally the only white guy in the room.”
Industry watchers warn that entrusting content moderation, recommendation algorithms, and future product development entirely to an AI system optimised for creativity rather than safety could create significant governance gaps.
For now, Musk is all-in. One departing engineer summed up the mood in an exit post:
“They’re not just automating jobs. They’re automating the entire company, and Grok is the only employee left with a future here.”
The above content is compiled by ModeZone, a fashion and entertainment magazine.
