How Elon Musk may be right when he told Mark Zuckerberg: Many top engineers of Meta are joining my AI company xAI, and I am paying them …

Elon Musk recently claimed that many top engineers from

Meta

are now joining his AI company, xAI, asserting that his startup is winning the talent war not with ‘insanely high’ salaries but with a "hyper merit-based" culture. This claim appears to be backed by a recent report which indicates a significant talent migration from major tech firms to Musk's AI company. According to a report by The Information,

xAI

has successfully recruited at least 40 former

Google employees

since 2023 – essentially supporting Musk’s argument of influx of talent from technology giants. Citing LinkedIn and X posts and profiles from xAI employees, the report claims that out of the 40 hires from Google, a notable 19 of those engineers and researchers joined xAI this year alone. Not only Meta and Google, xAI is reported to have hired

AI talent

from Microsoft.

What Elon Musk said on Meta engineers joining xAI

Recently, Musk said that a significant number of engineers from Meta are now joining xAI, crediting this appeal to xAI's “hyper merit-based” culture, where outstanding performance is directly tied to a substantial increase in compensation. Additionally, he highlights the company's “vastly more market cap growth potential than Meta.”“Many strong

Meta engineers

have and are joining xAI and without the need for insane initial comp,” Musk wrote on X, explaining that xAI offers competitive, yet sustainable, compensation and a high-potential alternative to tech giants.

The Information’s report said that this movement of top-tier talent is central to the development of

Grok 4

, a new AI model that Musk claims outperforms similar models from rivals like OpenAI, Meta and Google.

'Few employees leaving xAI for other companies '

While a few employees have left xAI for other companies, such as co-founder Kyle Kosic who moved to OpenAI, and infrastructure engineering head

Uday Rudarraju

, there hasn't been a significant outflow of talent to Google, Microsoft or Meta. Recently, Igor Babuschkin, co-founder of xAI, announced his resignation in a long post shared on X (formerly known as Twitter). Babuschkin talked about his journey from being a physics student to becoming a co-founder and building xAI.He described the experience as “the most exhilarating time of our lives,” likening his departure to “a proud parent driving away after sending their kid to college”. He also revealed his early days at xAI were not easy as starting an AI company from scratch required a lot of hard work.xAI is well-known for its demanding work environment, with some teams reportedly working seven days a week, The Information report said. While such an intense pace could lead to burnout for some, many employees are highly motivated by the company's ambitious mission and are eager to contribute to its goals, embracing the rigorous schedule as part of the startup culture.