Who is Diego Pasini, 20-year-old engineer promoted to lead Grok team at Elon Musk’s xAI

Elon Musk’s xAI has promoted a 20-year-old college student in charge of its team training Grok. Diego Pasini, who finished high school in 2023, now manages both contract and full-time staffers on the team.

The promotion comes days after xAI deactivated the Slack accounts of at least nine senior employees and carried out sweeping job cuts. Following the mass layoffs, Pasini told the remaining workers there would be no more cuts. However, around 100 additional jobs were eliminated soon after.

Who is Diego Pasini

Diego Pasini graduated from high school in 2023, the same year OpenAI was founded. Pasini studied computer science and economics at the University of Pennsylvania but is currently listed as “on leave” on his LinkedIn. He attended the Pingry School in New Jersey, an elite private school with tuition fees over $47,000, and was part of the robotics team. In 2022, he presented drone research at MIT.He also became a 2024 fellow at investment firm Contrary, which backs tech startups like Anduril and Replit. Elon Musk began following Pasini on X (formerly Twitter) in September after he posted in support of the billionaire.Pasini joined xAI in January this year after winning a hackathon the company hosted in San Francisco. Two of his teammates from that event later joined xAI and Tesla as well.According to reports, he assumed the leadership role earlier this month. Under his leadership, the team has implemented new performance evaluation protocols and shifted focus toward specific testing requirements to determine employee retention.According to a Business Insider report, he posted announcements in company Slack channels before layoffs, directing workers to concentrate on critical assessments that would influence their future positions at xAI.