Musk's xAI 'forces' engineer to quit over Grok-3 X post
What's the story
In a surprising turn of events, an employee at Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) company xAI has quit his job. Benjamin De Kraker resigned after he was asked to delete his social media post related to Grok 3, the firm's upcoming AI chatbot. De Kraker called the situation "absolutely absurd," and decided to quit his job instead of complying with the request.
Twitter Post
Take a look at De Kraker's resignation post
I resigned from xAI tonight.
— Benjamin De Kraker (@BenjaminDEKR) February 12, 2025
It makes me very sad, but was the right thing to do -- and here's why.
xAI told me I either had to delete the post quoted below, or face being fired.
After reviewing everything and thinking a lot, I've decided that I'm not going to delete the post… https://t.co/8egdL0c8gc
Resignation announcement
De Kraker's post about his resignation and xAI's ultimatum
De Kraker announced his resignation on X, saying, "I resigned from xAI tonight. It makes me very sad, but was the right thing to do." He went on to explain that xAI had given him an ultimatum: delete the post or be terminated. After much thought, he chose not to delete the post which he described as a "harmless personal opinion." De Kraker was shocked that he could be fired for merely acknowledging Grok 3's existence.
Controversy details
Grok 3's existence was already in public knowledge: De Kraker
De Kraker pointed out the irony of xAI's demand, as Grok 3 has been officially acknowledged by the company in blog posts and even by Elon Musk himself on social media and in video appearances. Musk-owned xAI told De Kraker that even mentioning "Grok 3 - TBD" constituted "confidential information." De Kraker's resignation came with a strong defense of free speech. He emphasized that his post was clearly labeled as his personal opinion, with no insider information or controversy.
About the post
What did De Kraker's controversial post say about Grok 3?
At the heart of the controversy is De Kraker's post from February 9 which contained his personal opinion on the current ranking of large language models "for code." He listed ChatGPT models on top spot, followed by, Grok 3 (to be determined), Claude, DeepSeek, and Gemini. Responding to De Kraker's resignation post, one user said, "Maybe it wasn't the mention but the order, and it would be less of an issue if it [Grok 3] were first on the list."
Message
De Kraker questions xAI and Musk's free speech stance
"Are they mad that my clearly-labeled opinion didn't guess that the still-unreleased Grok 3 will be higher? Maybe. Probably. Again, maybe it is at the top, I genuinely don't know. That's why it says "to be determined," wrote De Kraker in this resignation post on X. "It's very disappointing," De Kraker wrote, that a company claiming to value free speech would try to fire a low-level employee over "a clearly-labeled opinion that contains absolutely nothing controversial."