Recruitment Message After Restructuring
Elon Musk said on Wednesday that people should join xAI “if the idea of mass drivers on the Moon appeals to you,” following a restructuring that saw several former executives leave the company. The statement came after xAI’s merger with SpaceX and ahead of an anticipated public offering for the combined business. Musk’s comments framed recruitment around space-based infrastructure rather than around traditional goals such as advancing artificial general intelligence or building new software tools.
From Orbital Data Centers To The Moon
After outlining plans to build AI data centers in orbit, which he described as the primary link between xAI and SpaceX, Musk extended the idea to larger systems in deep space. He said that going beyond a terawatt per year of computing capacity would require moving to the Moon. He told staff he wants to see a mass driver on the Moon that would launch AI satellites into deep space. In his account, the next step after orbital facilities would be even larger computers built off Earth, supported by a lunar city that would manufacture space-based computers and send them into the solar system using a maglev-style system.
Context Of The All-Hands Presentation
The proposal appeared at the end of an all-hands presentation that xAI shared publicly. The slide describing the Moon base followed a pattern seen in past SpaceX presentations, where Musk has often ended talks with long-term space concepts. The Moon concept follows SpaceX’s recent shift away from its earlier focus on colonizing Mars, and it places xAI within a new narrative tied to large-scale space infrastructure.
Kardashev Scale And Energy Use
Musk linked the idea to the Kardashev Scale, a theoretical framework introduced in the 1960s to describe civilizations by their energy use. He said a Moon base could allow the company to use a few percent of the Sun’s energy to train and operate AI systems. He told employees that it is difficult to imagine what an intelligence at that scale would consider, and said he wants to see it happen.
SpaceX History And Changing Priorities
For nearly a decade, Musk’s Mars plans have been used as a recruiting theme at SpaceX. The long-term goal of human settlement on Mars helped unify development efforts and signaled ambition within the aerospace sector. Over time, some of those plans were scaled back. A 2016 proposal to adapt the Dragon spacecraft for Mars landings was dropped the following year due to technical and cost concerns. The vehicle that became Starship shifted focus toward launching Starlink satellites and fulfilling contracts to land astronauts on the Moon for NASA, valued at about $4 billion.
Economic And Technical Constraints
Unlike a multi-planet settlement, building data centers in Earth orbit is discussed as a possibility in the 2030s if demand and costs on Earth continue to rise. Building satellites and computers on the Moon would require further changes, including much cheaper access to space, reliable delivery of raw materials, and the infrastructure for a self-sustaining settlement. Researchers and startups are testing ways to manufacture chips and precision components in space, but large-scale production on the Moon would depend on several unproven steps.
Investor And Workforce Considerations
The Moon proposal arrives as xAI and SpaceX prepare for a public market debut and as Musk looks to present a long-term narrative for the combined business. The idea offers a different framing for what xAI represents beyond large language models. One departing executive said that many AI labs are building similar systems and described that work as repetitive, a comment that highlights the contrast between current industry practices and Musk’s space-focused vision.
Featured image credits: Wikimedia Commons
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