Elon Musk's Ruthless 48-Hour Ultimatum to xAI Employees: 'Tell Me What You've Done — Or Else'

A ruthless demand, a tight deadline and a familiar face. It's not a new scene in the tech world. Elon Musk has once again proven he's not afraid to push his employees to the brink, this time with a 48-hour ultimatum that left no room for excuses.

In a familiar move, Elon Musk has once again told his employees to justify their roles, sending an email to all xAI staff asking for a detailed summary of their recent achievements and what they plan to do next.

The Unrelenting 'Prove Your Worth' Ultimatum

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX gave his staff just two days to create a one-page report, summarising their accomplishments from the last four weeks and their goals for the next month. CNN, which obtained a copy of the email sent on Tuesday, reported that Musk set a deadline of Thursday at noon for all replies.

The message was succinct and to the point: 'Send a one page summary of what you've accomplished in the past four weeks and what you intend to accomplish in the next four weeks. This is due by noon on Thursday.'

The demand for reports arrived just as xAI was set to hold a three-hour, all-hands meeting on Wednesday, a period marked by ongoing turmoil at the artificial intelligence firm.

Musk's Demanding Approach Continues

This most recent request is consistent with a familiar pattern of Musk's, requiring productivity updates from his staff across his companies. In August 2024, for example, he sent similar messages to employees at X (previously Twitter), seeking monthly and annual summaries of their work to inform stock and option awards.

When he briefly served as an advisor to the Department of Government Efficiencies (DOGE), Musk sent bulk emails to federal employees, demanding weekly lists of their achievements and warning that a failure to reply would be treated as a resignation.

The federal initiative was ultimately withdrawn after some agencies advised staff working in sensitive departments not to reply. When Musk took over Twitter in 2022, he gained notoriety for instructing engineers to print out the code they had written, only to tell them to destroy the documents.

Layoffs Hit xAI's AI Training Team

This demand for productivity reports comes at a time of significant upheaval for xAI. Last week, as reported by Business Insider, the company cut hundreds of jobs from its data annotation team, a group responsible for training its AI chatbot, Grok.

The cuts impacted more than 500 employees; their work involved rating responses and labelling content to help improve the accuracy and consistency of Grok.

Although the leadership announced during an all-hands meeting on Monday that the layoffs had concluded, additional terminations occurred just a few hours later. At the same time, the company revealed plans to hire more specialised AI tutors for a variety of areas, including STEM, finance and medicine, as well as 'memes and headline commentary.'

The pay for these new roles has also increased significantly, from an initial $35-$65 (£25.97-£48.23) per hour to $45-$100 (£33.39-£74.21) per hour.