Elon Musk Slams Mark Zuckerberg's Hiring Spree, Says xAI Has More 'Growth Potential'

Elon Musk praised his AI startup xAI for its merit-based compensation and growth potential, contrasting it with Meta’s aggressive hiring strategy, according to Benzinga. In a Sunday post on X, Musk said engineers were joining xAI from Meta without needing “insane initial comp.” He claimed that xAI offers “vastly more market cap growth potential than Meta.” Musk's remarks follow Meta’s recruitment of top AI talent, including Apple’s Ruoming Pang and the appointment of Shengjia Zhao to lead its Superintelligence Labs. Dell CEO Michael Dell criticized Meta’s hiring spree for risking employee dissatisfaction. Musk denied reports of xAI seeking a $200 billion valuation but is reportedly raising $12 billion in debt to build an Nvidia-powered AI supercomputer. xAI also announced government-targeted products and new federal partnerships under its “Grok for Government” initiative.