Breaking News in AI! Elon Musk, Super Plan Revealed!

As the “lobster farming” craze sweeps the domestic market, Tesla founder Elon Musk has once again exposed his new project.

Recently, Musk revealed on a social platform a new project developed in collaboration between Tesla under his banner and the AI startup xAI, named “Digital Optimus”(Digital Optimus).

The project is jointly developed by xAI and Tesla, both under Musk’s control, with the goal of building an “AI digital employee” that can operate computers and automatically execute tasks. The core engine of this intelligent agent uses the Grok large model independently developed by xAI, endowing it with strong reasoning capabilities. Musk claims that this technology “in principle, can even simulate the operation of a complete company.”

** AI upgraded to an “execution entity”**

Musk’s exposure of “Digital Optimus” and the domestic market’s “lobster farming” boom both mean that artificial intelligence has entered the next stage of being “truly capable of getting work done.”

据 reports, the positioning of “Digital Optimus” is similar to the currently popular lobster(OpenClaw), with its core value lying in being able to “actually take action” to complete tasks—digitizing any workflow that relies on keyboard, mouse, and screen-based decision-making. The system plans to use Tesla’s self-developed AI4 chips, and combine them with servers based on NVIDIA hardware used by xAI. Musk says this combination is cost-competitive.

The project is part of Tesla’s $2 billion investment agreement with xAI reached in January this year, and theoretically it can simulate the workflow of different departments within a software company. In the future, it may also form a soft-and-hard coordination with Tesla’s humanoid robot “Optimus.” Foreign media reports say that if it succeeds, it could upend those traditional software vendors that rely on manual operations on their platforms.

Ping An International points out that the application boom of OpenClaw marks the AI industry’s official transition from “dialogue-based interaction” to “action-based interaction,” breaking the limitations of traditional AI that “talks but doesn’t do,” and promoting AI from an “assistive tool” to an “execution entity.” It has enabled AI to make a fundamental leap from “providing suggestions” to “delivering results,” so that AI can truly become a “digital employee” that fits into workflows. In addition, it greatly lowers the barrier to using AI automation, allowing individuals and small teams to build their own dedicated automation workflows at very low cost, giving rise to new modes of work.

** xAI company is in turmoil**

Although Musk has unveiled his ambitious new project “Digital Optimus,” inside the xAI company it is experiencing serious internal turmoil. Dissatisfied with the performance of the company’s programming department, Musk has already started a new round of layoffs, forcing multiple co-founders to leave.

On social media, Musk admitted: “When xAI was built for the first time, it wasn’t perfect, so now it’s being rebuilt from the ground up. The same thing happened at Tesla as well.”

Foreign media reports say that after Musk merged xAI with SpaceX last month, he carried out a complete reshuffle of xAI’s management team. He brought in “reformers” from SpaceX and Tesla to audit xAI; these personnel dismissed a number of employees who were considered to be not meeting expectations.

A co-founder of xAI, Zhang Guodong, previously served as head of the xAI Imagine team. According to two people familiar with the matter, due to problems with its coding products, Musk removed him from his main responsibilities; he later informed colleagues that he would leave the company. Zhang Guodong also posted on X on Thursday confirming his resignation. In addition, another co-founder, Dai Zihang(Zihang Dai), also left the company earlier this week.

However, while carrying out layoffs, Musk is quickly bringing in fresh talent. Reports say that recently xAI recruited two executives, Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg, from Cursor. Musk also posted welcoming Devendra Chaplot, a founding member of Thinking Machines, to join xAI.

Musk said: “In the past few years, many talented people were rejected by xAI for job opportunities and even for interview opportunities. I’m sorry about that.” He said he will also reach out again to those candidates who have potential.