XAI Lays Off 500 Annotator Data Team Employees For Grok Chatbot

Illustration of xAI employees (photo; x @xai)

The Jakarta artificial intelligence company owned by Elon Musk, xAI, is reported to have terminated employment (PHK) of at least 500 employees from the data annotation team who played an important role in the development of Grok chatbots. This report was submitted by Business Insider on Friday 12 September.

According to the report, the layoff notification was delivered via email on Friday night to employees. The affected team is a generalist "AI tutor" team, tasked with teaching Grok to understand the world by providing context and categorizing raw data.

Business Insider said workers would still receive salaries until the end of the contract or until November 30, but their access to the company's system was immediately lifted on the day of notification.

In response to this news, xAI refers to an upload on X (formerly Twitter) stating that the company actually plans to increase the number of specialist "AI tutor" teams by up to 10 times and is opening vacancies in various fields.

The massive cuts came after a Wall Street Journal report earlier this month that said Mike Liberatore, Chief Financial Officer of xAI, resigned at the end of July after only a few months in office.

Elon Musk founded xAI in 2023 to challenge the dominance of tech giants in the AI industry. Musk often accuses big players of excessive censorship and ignoring safety standards.