A 36-hour work sprint at xAI? Cue the applause from colleagues.
Elon Musk’s companies have long been known for their intensive work cultures. During Tesla’s production ramps, some employees slept in their cars or, in Musk’s case, on the factory floor. When Musk took over Twitter, he said to embrace an “extremely hardcore” schedule or be laid off.
At xAI, one employee recently said that they worked for a day and a half straight, sparking responses from their colleagues — and Musk himself.
“Last night I left the @xAI office after ~36 hours of working with no sleep,” xAI employee Parsa Tajik wrote alongside an image of himself inside his Tesla Cybertruck. “Although I was dead, I was also super energized. Incredibly grateful to be a part of this team. Happy Thanksgiving!”
Tajik’s comments are full of fellow xAI employees voicing their support.
“And got 192 hours’ worth of work done,” one wrote. “Bro is a unicorn among unicorns.”
“Incredibly grateful to be working with and learning from you,” another wrote.
A third xAI employee dropped two saluting emojis.
In a repost, xAI employee Ayush Jaiswal poked fun at the post while hyping up the company.
“Work life balance is great, in-fact we recommend it to all our competitors,” Jaiswal wrote. “Don’t be angry with this post. You’re free to disagree & let us cook.”
Musk responded to Jaiswal’s post with a laughing-crying emoji.
XAI has had a busy autumn. Musk’s AI company had mass layoffs and significant leadership changes. At a September all-hands meeting, a company leader told workers that the company had no further planned layoffs — before xAI cut more than 100 jobs.
The company has also moved quite quickly, possibly a product of its intense work culture. XAI released Grok-1 in November 2023 after four months of development. Though the company was founded just over three months after ChatGPT’s launch, xAI has already grown to a July valuation of $113 billion, per PitchBook.
Musk’s businesses have a history of late nights. The CEO has famously said he slept on the factory floor during theTesla’s Model 3 “production hell.” Twitter’s former director of product management, Esther Crawford, posted a photo of herself sleeping on the floor after Musk’s takeover. (The photo was staged, according to the book “Character Limit,” and Crawford called it “cheeky.”)
Tajik’s post, which now has over 11,000 likes, also drew concern from some online users who wondered if he drove home while sleep deprived.
“This is like bragging that you drove home drunk,” wrote Jason Ginsberg, Cursor’s head of product engineering. “Being awake for 36 hours is equivalent to a BAC of 0.16%. The legal limit is 0.08%.”
In a reply three days later, Tajik wrote that he apologized to “nobody,” and that his Tesla FSD carpool with two other engineers took him safely home.
“I’ve been working long hours for many years,” Tajik wrote. “This is how I got to @xAI from practically being homeless in 2020. Exceptional results require exceptional effort. Now is not the time to slow down.”
