Reid Hoffman says SpaceX is ‘not an AI company’ & xAI is a ‘complete train wreck'

Reid Hoffman has watched the AI industry from virtually every vantage point—as a founder, a lead investor and as a decade-long Microsoft board member. So when he calls SpaceX’s AI strategy “buying your way into relevance” and describes xAI as “a complete train wreck,” it’s not a hot take from the sidelines, but a verdict from one of Silicon Valley’s most respected voices. “SpaceX isn’t an AI company,” Hoffman said in a conversation with Rana el Kaliouby on her Pioneers of AI podcast. “XAI is, as Elon himself has described, it’s a complete train wreck for its kind of building of foundational models and other kinds of things.” He also noted that all of its founders have left and it’s on its “third restart.”