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xAI co-founder refutes viral tent photos: ‘That’s not our office, we have more tents’
xAI co-founder Greg Yang has refuted viral social media claims that showed photos of tents pitched inside an office space, alleged to be xAI’s headquarters
xAI co-founder Greg Yang has refuted viral social media claims that showed photos of tents pitched inside an office space, alleged to be xAI’s headquarters. The images, which circulated widely online this week, suggested that the company had set up tents for engineers to sleep overnight ahead of the July 4 launch of Grok 4.
The claims were not wholly unbelievable, given that Elon Musk, founder of the AI company, has repeatedly extolled the virtues of working overtime. Musk, in fact, has bragged about sleeping in office more than once.
On June 27, for example, he wrote on X: “Grinding on Grok all night with xAI team. Good progress.” A few months earlier, in May, Musk had also posted, “Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms”, adding that he planned to be “super focused on X, xAI and Tesla.”
Given this work culture being promoted by the founder of xAI, social media users were not totally surprised when one X user shared photographs of rows of tents set up in an office and claimed they were taken at the office of xAI. Although unconfirmed, many social media users took the claim at face value and began to share the photographs while praising or criticizing the organization.
A joking disclaimer
Yang, however, has stepped forward with a joking disclaimer to clarify that the images do not show the xAI office.
The co-founder of xAI used humour to dispel the rumours that tents were pitched at the xAI workplace so engineers could sleep overnight in office ahead of the July 4 launch of Grok 4.
“That's not our office. We have way more tents,” wrote Yang, a Harvard-educated mathematician.
Reuters reported on July 1 that Elon Musk's xAI has completed a $5 billion debt raise alongside a separate $5 billion strategic equity investment. The proceeds will support xAI's continued development of AI solutions, a data center and its flagship Grok platform, the bank said.
