Yann LeCun escalates feud with Elon Musk, calls xAI ‘failure’

Meta’s former chief AI scientist Yann LeCun reignited his long-running feud with Elon Musk, sharply criticising Musk’s AI venture xAI and calling it “kind of a failure” in a recent CNBC interview.

LeCun said he was “not very positive about the prospect of xAI,” arguing that the company is struggling to attract top-tier artificial intelligence talent and is facing internal instability.

LeCun says xAI struggling to attract top AI talent

According to LeCun, Musk’s leadership style has made it difficult for xAI to recruit and retain leading researchers in the field.

“Elon is now in a position where it’s very, very difficult for him to hire top people in AI, because he’s not behaved in very good ways toward the previous team,” he said.

LeCun was referring to the original xAI founding team, all of whom have since left the company. The last remaining co-founder, Ross Nordeen, was reportedly cut off from internal systems and removed from group communications, according to prior reporting cited by Business Insider.

Internal turnover and infrastructure concerns

LeCun also pointed to xAI’s reported use of its data center infrastructure, suggesting the company has leased capacity to competitors such as Anthropic as a way to offset costs.

“He’s got this huge infrastructure, which he rents to other people, because that’s the only way he can recoup the costs,” LeCun said.

He added that he does not see xAI as a strong competitor in frontier AI development, stating bluntly: “No, I don’t,” when asked whether the company could keep up with leading labs.

Long-running feud between LeCun and Musk

The remarks add another chapter to a years-long public dispute between LeCun and Musk, with both figures frequently clashing over AI safety, technical direction, and leadership approaches.

LeCun has previously criticised Musk’s predictions about artificial intelligence and autonomy, while Musk has questioned LeCun’s scientific views in public exchanges on X.

Despite his criticism of xAI, LeCun offered more positive comments about Musk’s other ventures.

“SpaceX is doing great stuff,” he said, adding that while Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system is “not full self-driving,” it is still useful.