LinkedIn Co-Founder: xAI Is “a Disaster”; SpaceX “Buys Its Way” into the AI Race

Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and investor in Anthropic and OpenAI, recently shared his views on the “Pioneers of AI” podcast, offering assessments of several AI companies. Hoffman bluntly stated that SpaceX “is not an AI company,” describing its acquisition of Cursor and other moves as “buying relevance with money,” and labeled xAI as “a complete disaster”—all 11 of xAI’s original co-founders have departed, the company has undergone three reorganizations, and its flagship model Grok consistently lags behind competitors in benchmark tests. Regarding the U.S. government’s order—citing export controls—for Anthropic to delist its Fable and Mythos models, Hoffman expressed strong concern, criticizing the government’s approach as “authoritarian and principle-free,” and pointing out the stark asymmetry in regulatory standards applied to Anthropic versus OpenAI. Furthermore, Hoffman argued that Anthropic and OpenAI are not engaged in zero-sum competition; rather, each holds distinct advantages—in coding, design, legal frameworks, and consumer-facing applications—and both stand poised to become “infrastructure-level” companies in the AI era. He also announced his resignation from Microsoft’s board to fully dedicate himself to Manas AI, an AI-driven drug discovery company.