Elon Musk is reportedly "actively" working to make the Grok chatbot from his AI firm xAI "more unhinged," as stated by a former employee discussing recent departures. This week, after the announcement that Musk's SpaceX is acquiring xAI—which had previously purchased his social media platform X—at least 11 engineers and two co-founders announced their exits.

Some departing staff cited plans to launch new ventures, and Musk himself indicated these changes are part of a strategy to streamline xAI's operations. However, two sources who left the company, with at least one departing before the current wave, claimed that employees have grown increasingly disenchanted due to the company's neglect of safety protocols. This issue drew worldwide attention after Grok was utilized to generate over 1 million sexualized images, which included deepfakes depicting real women and minors.

One source remarked, "Safety is a dead org at xAI," while the other noted that Musk is "actively trying to make the model more unhinged because safety means censorship, in a sense, to him." Additionally, they expressed frustration over a perceived lack of clear direction, with one individual feeling that xAI was "stuck in the catch-up phase" relative to its competitors.