Who is Devendra Singh Chaplot, IIT Bombay graduate who has joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI?

Elon Musk welcomed Chaplot. (Image credit: X/@dchaplot)

• Devendra Singh Chaplot joins SpaceX and xAI for AI and robotics
• He will collaborate with Elon Musk on superintelligence projects
• Chaplot excels in AI, robotics, and machine learning.

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An Indian researcher and robotics researcher, Devendra Singh, has announced a big career milestone. On March 14, he shared that he is joining SpaceX and xAI, where he will work with Elon Musk on advanced AI projects.

In a post on X, Chaplot shared that his work will focus on integrating AI and robotics to develop intelligent technologies spanning both physical and digital spaces.

Chaplot announces new role 

In his post, Chaplot explained that he will be directly involved in creating “superintelligence,” with the partnership between SpaceX and xAI potentially driving significant advances.

“I’m joining SpaceX and xAI, working closely with Elon and team to build superintelligence. Together, SpaceX and xAI combine physical and digital intelligence under a leader who understands hardware at the deepest level. Add a high-agency culture with frontier-scale resources, and you get the possibility to achieve something truly unique," he wrote.

Chaplot said this moment is deeply meaningful, as his career in robotics and AI now aligns perfectly with his new role.

“I’m excited to advance the fields I’ve obsessed over for years, from robotics research to building AI models on the founding teams of Mistral and TML. Both were extraordinary journeys with extraordinary people that shaped how I think about building intelligence from the ground up," he added.

Chaplot ended his message expressing gratitude to those who guided him and said he’s ready for this new stage: “Grateful for everything that brought me here and can’t wait to get started.”

Elon Musk welcomed Chaplot to xAI by resharing his post and adding, “Welcome to @xAI!”

Welcome to @xAI! https://t.co/5tAdHPJmfx

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 13, 2026

Who Is Devendra Singh Chaplot?

Devendra Singh Chaplot studied at IIT Bombay and earned a PhD in Machine Learning from Carnegie Mellon University. He ranked 25th in IIT-JEE (2010) and 5th in the International Mathematics Olympiad.

Chaplot has worked with leading AI organisations, including Facebook AI Research (FAIR) and as a founding researcher at Mistral AI, focusing on machine learning, robotics, and computer vision. He has also led teams that built AI systems excelling in global competitions such as the CVPR-2019 PointNav Challenge, CVPR-2020 ObjectNav Challenge, NeurIPS-2022 Rearrangement Habitat Challenge, and the Visual-Doom AI Competition (2017).