“This is due by…” Elon Musk gives 48 hours deadline to xAI employees

elon musk

Elon Musk is once again putting his employees under pressure, this time at xAI.

According to CNN, Musk sent an email on Tuesday afternoon to all xAI staff asking them to submit a one-page report of their recent work. Each employee has until Thursday noon—just 48 hours—to outline what they’ve accomplished in the past four weeks and what they plan to achieve in the next four. The request comes right before a three-hour all-hands meeting scheduled for Wednesday.

The email was blunt and to the point: “Send a one page summary of what you’ve accomplished in the past four weeks and what you intend to accomplish in the next four weeks. This is due by noon on Thursday.”

For Musk, this isn’t new. He has a long history of demanding productivity reports at his companies. Back in 2022, after acquiring Twitter, he famously asked developers to print their code, only to later tell them to shred it. In 2024, X employees were told to submit monthly and yearly contributions to determine stock awards. Even during his short-lived advisory role with the Department of Government Efficiencies, Musk required weekly accomplishment lists from federal workers—warning that silence would count as resignation.

At xAI, however, the timing of the mandate is striking. The company is currently facing turbulence after laying off more than 500 members of its data annotation team, which helped train the Grok AI chatbot. Workers were told during a Monday meeting that layoffs were finished, only for more cuts to happen hours later.

At the same time, xAI is trying to reposition itself by hiring “AI tutors” in areas like STEM, finance, medicine, and even internet culture. Pay for these roles has jumped significantly, from $35–65 an hour to $45–100 an hour.

Musk’s message to employees is clear: in his world, everyone must prove their worth quickly or risk being left behind.