War rooms, group chats, and video games: Inside Elon Musk's AI startup

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• XAI merged with SpaceX and lost two cofounders — all in the same month.
• Current and former employees say Elon Musk has increased his focus on the startup over the past six months.
• Workers detailed Musk's 300-person group chat, war rooms, and their concerns about safety.

At xAI's Palo Alto headquarters, engineers cheered.

It was February 2, and they'd just received a memo from Elon Musk, informing them the AI startup would be acquired by his rocket company, SpaceX.