Engineer calls Bay Area pizza 'trash'. Elon Musk answers with wood-fired oven at xAI

An engineer at Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI offered a glimpse into a newly announced workplace benefit that won notable attention online after a week-old promise from Musk.

The engineer, Eric Jiang, tweeted that he had just eaten pizza at the xAI office. He posted a photograph in which he was holding a slice of pizza. Behind him, a wood fire oven was visible.

The post came after Musk responded to one of Jiang’s earlier complaints about food in the region. On September 17, Jiang had written on X: “Why is pizza in the Bay Area such absolute trash, like wt, we nerds can cook up a recipe for a gajillion-parameter model no problemo but can’t figure out a mildly appetizing ratio for some flour, water, and cheese.”* Musk replied to that, saying: “Wood-fired pizza oven coming to xAI.”

The response to Jiang’s photo was broadly enthusiastic. One user offered cooking advice: “I’ve made pizza on the grill before. Try it; it’s really good. Do the crust on one side, flip it, then take it off. Once you’ve got those grill lines, add the sauce and the cheese, fire it up for another two minutes on max high. Incredible.”

Others reflected on the company culture. One person commented: “Working at Xai must be wild, wood-fired pizza while training models is peak Silicon Valley madness, and I’m here for it.” Another wrote: “X is the place to ask for things indirectly, and you get it from the man.” A humorous note appeared in: “A pizza, a ticket to Mars.... don’t need billions to attract top talents.” Someone else praised Musk’s follow-through: “He’s a man of his word!”