Two Indian Origin AI Researchers Join Musk’s xAI
Musk’s AI venture adds talent from leading research labs and startups as it scales its superintelligence efforts.
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[Image source: Diksha Mishra/MITSMR India]
Devendra Singh Chaplot and Aman Gottumukkala, two AI researchers of Indian origin, have joined Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI as the firm expands its work on advanced AI systems.
Chaplot said he will work with teams across xAI and SpaceX on advanced AI systems. Announcing the move in a post on X, he wrote that he would collaborate closely with Musk and engineering teams at both organizations.
“I’m joining SpaceX and xAI, working closely with Elon and team to build superintelligence,” Chaplot wrote.
Chaplot is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-Bombay) and later earned a PhD in machine learning from Carnegie Mellon University, where his research focused on autonomous navigation systems.
Before joining Musk’s companies, he worked at Thinking Machines Lab and earlier at Mistral AI, contributing to models including Mistral 7B, Mixtral 8x7B and Mistral Large.
His work has largely focused on combining machine learning, robotics and computer vision to develop systems capable of understanding and interacting with their surroundings.
Chaplot said the combination of SpaceX’s engineering capabilities and xAI’s research efforts could enable progress in advanced AI development.
“Together SpaceX and xAI combine physical and digital intelligence under a leader who understands hardware at the deepest level,” he said in the post. “Add a high agency culture with frontier scale resources, and you get the possibility to achieve something truly unique.”
He also reflected on his previous work in artificial intelligence and robotics.
“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,” Chaplot wrote. “Both were extraordinary journeys with extraordinary people that shaped how I think about building intelligence from the ground up.”
Chaplot has also worked as a research scientist at Facebook AI Research, focusing on projects that combined computer vision with robotics.
Following Chaplot’s announcement, Musk responded on X with a short message welcoming him to the organisation.
“Welcome to @xAI!” Musk wrote.
In a separate development, another Indian origin software engineer Aman Gottumukkala has also joined xAI.
Gottumukkala is best known in the developer community as the co-founder of Firebender, a startup that built an AI powered coding assistant for Android developers.
In a post on X, he said he will work with teams connected to xAI and SpaceX on systems that can automatically write software.
Gottumukkala’s startup Firebender focused on building tools that help developers generate code and automate parts of the development workflow.
The software integrates directly with development environments such as Android Studio and JetBrains IDEs, allowing programmers to manage and write code within tools they already use.
Despite operating with a team of only three people, the startup reportedly generated millions of dollars in revenue and gained attention among developers.
Firebender was launched through Y Combinator, a startup accelerator that supports early stage technology companies.
Gottumukkala studied computer science at Texas A&M University and earlier attended the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, a program focused on advanced education in science and mathematics.
Earlier in his career he worked as a software engineer at Paradigm, a technology firm focused on cryptocurrency infrastructure. He is also a Kleiner Perkins Fellow, a program that connects engineers and founders with venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.
At xAI, Gottumukkala is expected to focus on developing artificial intelligence tools that can automate parts of the software development process.
“I’ve watched model capabilities compound at a staggering rate and we’re clearly on the brink of recursive superintelligence,” he wrote in his announcement.
The hires come as Musk continues expanding xAI’s research teams as the company competes with major artificial intelligence labs developing advanced AI systems.
