Some Tesla engineers are reportedly jumping ship to Elon Musk’s AI startup – Business Insider Africa

Ethan Knight, a machine-learning scientist who formerly worked at Tesla, moved over to xAI last month, according to the AI company’s website.

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours. However, after The Information article was published, Musk took to X to claim Knight was planning to move to OpenAI before choosing xAI.

Musk accused OpenAI of “aggressively recruiting Tesla engineers with massive compensation offers.” He added he had been raising salaries for those on Tesla’s AI engineering team in response.

In a January X post, the billionaire said he would feel “uncomfortable” expanding the EV company’s AI and robotics capabilities without controlling a quarter of the voting bloc.

Musk added that the voting power would make him “influential,” but could still be outvoted on major decisions.

He said he’d prefer to “build products outside of Tesla” if he didn’t have sufficient control.

The blunt comments were seen as an ultimatum and unnerved some investors. At the time, Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities said Musk’s comments sparked a “firestorm.”