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'Godfather of AI' says Musk's xAI is a failure
Yann LeCun said xAI won't be able to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic

'Godfather of AI' says Musk's xAI is a failure

Jun 19, 2026
12:04 pm

What's the story

Yann LeCun, the founder of AMI Labs and former Meta AI chief, has criticized Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) venture, xAI. He called it a "failure" and said it won't be able to compete with industry giants like OpenAI and Anthropic. The criticism comes amid an ongoing feud between LeCun and Musk over various topics including AI development and valuations of some of the world's biggest AI companies.

Industry bubble

AI industry facing potential 'big bubble explosion'

LeCun, widely referred to as Godfather of AI,' expressed his concerns about the AI industry, saying it could face a "big bubble explosion" if labs don't cut costs and raise prices. His comments come as companies are finding that running AI systems is more expensive than expected. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently acknowledged this issue during a company livestream, calling AI costs a "huge issue."

Operational hurdles

LeCun on xAI's operational challenges

LeCun highlighted the operational challenges faced by xAI, saying it has a "huge infrastructure" that it rents to other companies. This, he said, is the only way Musk can recover costs. His remarks were in reference to xAI's Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers in Memphis, Tennessee, where Google and Anthropic have rented computing power capacity.

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AI labs

LeCun's views on AI labs and world models

LeCun said that leading AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic will have to either increase prices or cut costs to avoid a potential "big bubble explosion." He has been critical of large language models (LLMs) which power today's top AI products. Instead, he advocates for "world models," a different approach to building an understanding of how the real or simulated world works.

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