Who is Devendra Chaplot? Indian AI expert joining Musk's xAI
What's the story
Devendra Singh Chaplot, an Indian AI researcher and robotics expert, has announced his decision to join Elon Musk's xAI and SpaceX. In a post on X, he said he would be working closely with Musk and the team to build superintelligence. "Together, SpaceX and xAI combine physical and digital intelligence under a leader who understands hardware at the deepest level," Chaplot wrote in his post.
Career trajectory
Chaplot holds a PhD in machine learning
Chaplot is an IIT Bombay Computer Science graduate with a PhD in Machine Learning from Carnegie Mellon University. He has worked as a Research Scientist at Mistral AI, where he focused on developing next-generation AI models. Previously, he served at the Facebook AI Research (FAIR) Lab, working at the intersection of Machine Learning, Computer Vision, and Robotics.
Awards and accolades
His work has been recognized at top-tier AI conferences
Chaplot has designed multiple award-winning AI systems, including those that won the CVPR-2019 PointNav and CVPR-2020 ObjectNav, NeurIPS-2022 Rearrangement Habitat Challenges, and the Visual-Doom AI Competition 2017. He is a Facebook Fellowship Award recipient and his research has been honored with Best Paper and Best Demo awards at top-tier AI conferences. His work has also been covered by popular media outlets such as MIT Technology Review, TechCrunch, Engadget, Popular Science, Kotaku, and Daily Mail.
Team welcome
Musk welcomes Chaplot to his team
Musk welcomed Chaplot to his team with a simple "Welcome to @xAI!" The move comes after Musk apologized for past hiring mistakes at xAI and announced a review of interview records. This is part of his plan to refocus on talent as he rebuilds the company's foundation. Musk has previously compared xAI's revamp to Tesla's early days, noting a history of bold restarts driving innovation in AI development.
Twitter Post
Take a look at Musk and Chaplot's post
Welcome to @xAI! https://t.co/5tAdHPJmfx
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 13, 2026