Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#781

Post by arjie » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 4:12 PM UTC

scared_together wrote: post #695

arjie wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone familiar with Wikipedia etiquette knows how to find the answer to this question. Rather than getting into an argument here about a subject there, I'd prefer you familiarize yourself with the norms of that community, and if you already have or are experienced with them, then you know where to discuss the subject guided by those norms.

But you’re responding to a comment here, not there. So why not abide by the norms that prevail here?

My experience is that we end up debating the norms because this forum has different views than Wikipedia itself. That’s interesting to some but not to me so I’m opting out.

In addition, the answer to the question is already available so I want any question asker to put in a little bit of effort and if they’re not going to do that then I’m not really interested in talking to them since I prefer peer interactions to tutorials.

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#782

Post by cmorgan31 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 4:12 PM UTC

GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #611

cmorgan31 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mate, wouldn’t it make sense that these rules are applied via hierarchy? If Elon respects Karparthy he almost certainly gave him a longer leash and Karparthy’s output was strong enough to not warrant intervention. It’s clear he did not want to stay long term so I’m not sure this is a strong line of thinking.

It's possible. I don't know. My tone comes off as support Elon, and I do not, at all. I've seen first-hand almost all of these tactics while I was at . I'm observing that some people seem to do OK at Elon's companies, and for many years, and never seem to get the boot or be abused in other ways. Therefore, Elon is probably not quite as bad a manager as he is made out to be. This is all I am saying. Since I have first…

I don’t believe Elon is even remotely related to a people manager. He’s a stakeholder and operator which require different skill sets. He finds folks who will manage to o bring the empathy he tends to lose in his pursuit of his next project. I believe your evidence may be anecdotally valuable but let’s be clear about the dynamic of a founder/ceo.

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#783

Post by epgui » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #553

epgui wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong in two different ways: - this tends to approximate consensus. - Wikipedia does care, and has a policy on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Scientific_consensus

>and has a policy on this Look at the top of that page. >This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

That’s like arguing that “forming a queue at the store” is not an official policy.

The document outlines normative / prescriptive approaches that are followed in practice.

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#784

Post by mancerayder » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

tasty_freeze wrote: post #582

tptacek wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what Musk did or didn't say. I don't pay attention to him; I think he's odious. But he did cut more than half the entire workforce and the service works as well as it ever has, which is pretty damning. I'm not willing tie myself into the pretzel required to explain how antebellum Twitter was well-managed given that. There's some fraction of that workforce that supported projects intended to make Twitte…

Many of the workforce he laid off were content moderators -- I've read it was a serious effort with a large number of people doing thankless work. There is now way more anti-Semitic content on X, more racial insults, etc.

Side point, but you'll find plenty of anti semitism on HN in the Israel articles that have many comments - it comes in the form of conspiracy comments that people reply with, that use mossad, pedophilia, Netanyahu and the US in the same sentence. Any replies calling it out become greyed from downvotes.

It's just not viewed as anti-Semitism, probably in the same way that the posts on X aren't viewed as far-right or extremist.

Extremists usually don't experience their views as extreme, but as rational and important.

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#785

Post by verzali » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

bobsmooth wrote: post #621

Zigurd wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if Starlink had more than a few tens of millions of customers, China mobile has 900 million subs and is worth around $250 billion. ULA was recently valued at about 1 billion. SpaceX might be possibly worth 50 times as much or maybe even 100 times as much. Falcon nine is the world's workhorse rocket, but it's just not that remarkable, and starship is utterly unproven to launch to orbit and land both stages. Stars…

>Falcon nine is the world's workhorse rocket, but it's just not that remarkable Falcon delivered the vast majority of mass into orbit last year, and the year before that >starship is utterly unproven to launch to orbit It's already deployed test satellites into orbit. You're so intellectually dishonest you refuse to acknowledge things that have already happened.

>It's already deployed test satellites into orbit.

No... it hasn't done this. It hasn't yet deployed anything into orbit.

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#786

Post by dudeinhawaii » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

numbers_guy wrote: post #68

Unfortunate. The Grok team built a phenomenal model. I use it all the time and it very often out performs GPT and Claude, on coding and STEM research related tasks. I was part of the beta for a while Grok 4.2 Beta with multi-agents and it was just amazingly good. People aren't using it for reasons other than its capabilities. I mean, I don't think my boss would approve a paid Grok subscription for example.

I don't see what you're seeing, in any dimension. But here's a fair take.

I wrote several very specialized benchmarks that I've used over time, that surface "model personalities" and their effects on decision making (as well as measuring the outcomes).

Grok 4.1 Fast Reasoning is/was a solid model. It's also fundamentally different from the pack.

I call it a smart, aggressive, Claude Haiku. That is, its "thinking" is quite chaotic and sometimes short-hand and its output can be as well (relate to other models).

Its aggressiveness can allow it to punch above in competitive scenarios that I have in some of my benchmarks. Its write-ups and documentation are often replete with "dominate", "relentless" and a general high energy that skirts the limits of 'cringe bro'. That said, it has generally performed just beneath the SOTA (at the time: GPT-5.2, Gemini-3-Flash, Claude Opus 4.5). Angry Sonnet perhaps.

The latest release feels quite similar but also underperforms the same older crowd (so far) so it hasn't quite made the leap that Claude's 4.6 and GPT's 5.3/5.4 series made. It's also now priced the same as its peers but does not deliver SOTA capabilities (at least not consistently in my opinion).

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#787

Post by ethbr1 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 4:32 PM UTC

calqacon wrote: post #473

ryandrake wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there actual good examples showing errors of fact on Wikipedia that are verifiably incorrect, that demonstrate how it is "captured"?

How about Gabrowski et al.: "Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust", about the outsize influence of certain coordinated Polish editors on the Wikipedia articles about Poland and the Holocaust? https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/25785648.2023.2... Quote from the conclusion: > This essay has shown that in the last decade, a handful of editors have been steering Wikipedia’s narrati…

If the debate here is that sustained ethno-political campaigns are slightly shifting Wikipedia over time in a way that requires an academic paper to detect...

Vs.

What Elon is doing...

Then we're not even comparing fruits to fruits.

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#788

Post by annexrichmond » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 4:36 PM UTC

brokencode wrote: post #758

annexrichmond wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are really suggesting everything in Wikipedia is truthful, complete, and free of all biases?

No, when did I say that? That’s impossible for anything of the size of Wikipedia. I was suggesting that Elon Musk, a man who has donated hundreds of millions to Trump and other Republican causes, who has numerous financial conflicts of interest, and who has publicly lied numerous times, is never going to produce a more unbiased and factual encyclopedia than Wikipedia. Especially when his effort to do so is essentiall…

Right, and Wikipedia leadership is free of any conflicts of interest:

During and after her Wikimedia role, Maher drew fire for statements perceived as rejecting objective truth or Wikipedia’s traditional “free and open” model:

• In a 2021 TED Talk, she described reverence for truth as potentially a “distraction” hindering common ground.

• She called Wikipedia’s free-and-open ethos a “white male Westernized construct” that excluded diverse communities.

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#789

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 4:37 PM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #772

kakacik wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure which car you compare it to specifically from those manufacturers, but teslas seem much more expensive where I live than most models of those. Comparing it to corresponding BMW would be a more appropriate comparison. Then comparison of quality of manufacturing and driving experience would end up in very different way (as driver of even older bmw 5 series teslas I've been to feel very cheap, and driving enjoy…

This is the archetype I have seen for most fans of Tesla and people who think they make good cars. They assume a $50,000 car (their current Tesla) should compare with a $20,000 car (their previous Honda/Mazda). The Tesla market is also the market with BMWs and Porsches, and dollar for dollar you get a lot more from a BMW than a Tesla.

I compare my $41.5k Model Y with a Rav4/Highlander.

The Rav4 costs the same, but has far worse performance, technology, and ongoing maintenance costs.

The Highlander is slightly better, but costs $10k to $20k more, and still has far worse performance, technology, and ongoing maintenance costs.

Plus, I avoided spending hours at a dealership, and I must know at least a couple dozen Tesla owners that report no issues in the previous 5 to 10 years.

I thought I would miss Carplay, but it’s a non issue. Toyota wanted $15 to $25 per month for remote start, I pay Tesla $0 per month for remote start and remote climate control.

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#790

Post by SmirkingRevenge » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

bdangubic wrote: post #768

bmitc wrote: post #767

Did everyone forget that xAI was just a way for Musk to weasle his way out of debt from his Twitter purchase?

His Twitter purchase bought him the Presidency and Congress and Senate - arguably the greatest purchase in this history of mankind

The level of influence his purchase had on the actual outcome of the election is debatable. I'm skeptical it mattered much at all. Twitter is just less important than people think. Trump, at worst, had about a 50/50 shot to win in any case.

Elon spent a couple hundred million on get-out-the-vote operations in swing states, which made him the single biggest donor supporting Trump by far and I think that's what really ingratiated him enough with Trump to head up DOGE, and for And FWIW, Elon has tried to influence other races with his megaphone and money (like a WI supreme court race) and totally failed.