Overview
- xAI said it will expand its specialist tutor ranks by 10x and is recruiting across STEM, finance, medicine, safety and other domains.
- Internal emails outlined an immediate shift away from generalist roles, with roughly one-third of the annotation workforce—about 500 people—let go.
- Remaining staff were instructed to complete rapid skills tests to be considered for specialist tracks after access for departing workers was terminated immediately.
- Screenshots show senior annotation leaders’ Slack accounts were deactivated days before the cuts, and workers reported one-on-one reviews that caused alarm.
- The shake-up follows leadership changes reported earlier, including CFO Mike Liberatore’s exit this summer, as the company retools how it trains and evaluates Grok.