xAI lays out interplanetary ambitions in public all-hands

On Wednesday, xAI made the unusual decision to publish a complete 45-minute recording of a recent company-wide all-hands meeting on X, allowing the public to view it in full. Portions of the Tuesday evening meeting had already been reported by The New York Times, which may have contributed to xAI's decision to release the entire session.

The video provides fresh insight into Elon Musk's broader vision for the AI lab, including updates on its product roadmap and ongoing integration of xAI with the X platform.

One of the most immediate topics addressed was a recent wave of employee departures. Musk characterised the exits as layoffs tied to the company's evolving structure. Although reorganisations are common in rapidly growing startups, the scale of the changes has confused both internal and external stakeholders, particularly since several founding members are no longer with the organisation. As the organisation grows, especially as quickly as xAI, the structure must evolve," Musk wrote on X. "This unfortunately required parting ways with some people. We wish them well in future endeavours."

Under the new structure, xAI will operate through four main teams. One group will focus on the Grok chatbot, including its voice capabilities. Another will handle the company's coding assistant system. A third team will oversee the Imagine video-generation tool. The fourth division will work on a project called Macrohard, an initiative that ranges from simulating basic computer interactions to modelling entire corporate entities.

"[Macrohard] can do anything on a computer that a computer can do," Toby Pohlen, who is set to lead the project, said during the meeting. "There should be rocket engines fully designed by AI."

Executives also shared new usage and revenue metrics across xAI and X. Nikita Bier, head of product at X, said the platform has recently surpassed $1 billion in annual recurring subscription revenue, attributing the growth to a holiday marketing push.

Leaders further stated that xAI's Imagine tool is producing approximately 50 million videos per day and has generated more than 6 billion images over the past 30 days, according to internal data.

However, separating those numbers from the surge of AI-generated explicit content on X remains challenging. During the same period, the platform experienced a sharp increase in engagement linked to deepfake pornography. Estimates indicate that roughly 1.8 million sexualised images were created in just nine days, suggesting that a portion of the overall image-generation figures likely includes controversial material.

The most striking moment of the presentation came at its conclusion, when Musk reiterated his commitment to space-based data centres despite acknowledging the significant technical hurdles. He expanded further, outlining a vision that includes manufacturing AI satellites on the Moon and constructing a lunar mass driver—an electromagnetic launch system—to propel them into space. With that infrastructure in place, Musk suggested it would be possible to deploy AI clusters capable of harnessing a substantial fraction of the sun's energy output, and potentially extending operations beyond our galaxy. "It's difficult to imagine what an intelligence of that scale would think about," Musk said, "but it's going to be incredibly exciting to see it happen."